When will I ever get my compost bin full?

[Bozza]

I got a compost bin at Easter and have been dilligently putting in kitchen fruit/veg peelings, egg shells, egg boxes, a fair amount of shredded paper, some of the mown grass but not all, flower deadheads and the odd dead bedding plant, some bags of half rotted leaves I collected in the autumn. And it is still not even up to the top of the little door. I realise it is good because it means eveything is rotting down well but when am I ever going to have any compost?

Yes Pamina when I first put the stuff in I calculated it would be full by August. But now it is no fuller than it was at the end of April. Dunno about darlek, it's more like a tardis.

i've had mine for 2 years and it's still only a 1/4 full! when i peer in i can see it's rotted down nicely underneath (have also got a Dalek one from the council) but still not attempted to get any out - can't see that how you can get a shovel full of compost out of that little window thing

So this is normal then? I assumed I wasn't finding enough compostable material. I suppose, come the autumn I will have more.

a lot of it disappears as carbon dioxide (isn't chemistry fascinating?).
Would tend to turn into methane if landfilled, which is a much worse greenhouse gas than CO2, so composting deffo still a good thing.

Just dig into the bottom layer. Its good stuff.
If you can, remove the whole dalek. Put back any uncomposted material to start the new heap + any worms that have appearred.