Starting a composter

[TheHorseyouRodeInOn]

I've just bought a composter for our small garden after realising that I was putting an awful lot of food into our recycling bin that could be used to make compost for the garden.
Not sure where to start now!
It's this one.

@TheHorseyouRodeInOn ..Hi. We have started a composter a year ago. We bought it from the council and it's just a plastic tub really with a sliding door opening at the bottom. We started with grass clippings and veg peelings, etc from the kitchen, also egg shells and loads of tea bags! I spend ages ripping open the bags to get the tea out as you don't want the bags in your compost! It's going well. All I do is try to aerate it with a fork although it's hard to get deep down into it as the shape of the bin is awkward. I think you have to add water too esp in the hot summer months. I do find you have to break stuff up into small bits as it takes ages to rot down otherwise.
Good luck

So I've started composing but now I seem to have a rat problem! Holes have been dug underneath it and I'm putting stones over them but they just keep on digging new ones 😂

Can you put it on some paving stones or similar? Stones over rat holes won't stop them. You'd probably need to get a pest controller to lay bait for these particular rats and then provide a rat resistant base like concrete going forward.

I've had a can 'o' worms composter for the last 15 or so years which I really like. It's a bit prone to fruit flies in the summer but the worms fascinate my five year old. My 'dalek' composter never really performed in comparison.

Thank you @SoundofSilence
I do have three miniature dachshunds so can't risk any kind of poison ( I once had a dog who got hold of some despite it being in a safe container 😕)
Does the wormery take kitchen waste such as peelings, eggshells etc?
If so I might give it a go!

The worms love peelings and are very partial to a teabag, but not so fond of eggshells. I often find them whole in the bottom tray. Apparently they are supposed to be crushed first, but that's too much hassle for me, so I put egg shells in the green bin the council takes instead.

Was your dog okay? Mine once stole a 1/2 kilo dark chocolate easter egg and had to be purged. The idiot is still with us aged 14.

My dog survived after spending 5 days on a drip in the vets but the poison affected her liver and she was never the same again 😐

Paving slabs will stop all the bacteria & beasties in the soil from getting to the material in your composter so not a good start for you. Food waste is definitely best in a wormery, or if you want to stick with your composter, you could look at a bokashi bin. Once food has been through that rats don't tend to be interested.

We throw in all the kitchen veg ends, tissues, eggshells, egg cartons, garden green waste, coffee grounds, teabags (ours don't have plastic), nail clippings, and probably some other stuff. Don't ever put bits of tomatos in, else your compost will sprout tomatoes everywhere you use it! Very surprising the first time.

Ours is open-base like yours, so it's the ground worms, bacteria and fungus that do all the hard work. If you seal yours to escape the rats, you'll need to manually supply worms - there's kits for that.

Rats are usually only attracted to meaty waste which is why we don't put it in - it would work otherwise. Yours must be desperate.

Has anyone used a barrel composter that is above the ground? They are a bit pricey but apparently solve the rat problem.

@TheHorseyouRodeInOn.. considering I provided you with a response at the beginning of this thread and got no acknowledgment a thank you might have been nice!

We didn't put our compost bin on concrete and had a rat problem despite being vegetarian. We got rid of it but I'm keen to restart once I can get slabs down but I'm starting a wormer next.

@BooseysMom I am very sorry! For some reason your post has appeared above mine on my thread and I did not see it 😩 I am so embarrassed!
Very good advice , thank you.

@TheHorseyouRodeInOn... oh I feel awful for sending that last msg now! I'm sorry too.. only excuse is I'm having a dreadful few days. I didn't mean to have a rant at you and apologise for my angry msg. I appreciate your reply though thank you.

@BooseysMom
Honestly don't worry about it, we all have those days! 😊

We have quite a large composter. We put in garden cuttings, chicken run clearings, grass cuttings and the occasional egg. We don't really add food waste to ours and use the council one. I've heard that citrus fruits don't compost easily and I can't be bothered to separate our food waste.

Thank you to everyone who's replied! At the moment I'm putting in everything except food scraps because of the rats.
My dogs are driving me mad running up to the composter every time I let them out, then they won't come back in!
I think I'm going to look for an enclosed type of composter as I didn't expect all this trouble 🙄
@VanillaSugarr that looks like an interesting one, I was hoping to do this on a budget but 🤷‍♀️ !

The good news is, I've found one on eBay for £30 not far from here, collection only. I'm hoping to get that soon 🤞

Wow, let us know how you get on!

Yes I will, thank you 😊

We had a rat chap out when we had rats in the compost. He put the bait in a box. Only rats could get to it, and not dogs. Then the box was under a paving slab and hidden. Certainly killed the rats. Although I can understand your reluctance.

We had to state who lived st the house and animals etc before they’d start to lay poison.

IMO once you have rats they’d breed quickly and if they’ve established a food source tpthey are hard to get rid of.

I got this yesterday. Bought it off eBay for £30, bargain! So now I can get on with my composting without the rats

Dobby, the dog I was talking about managed to pick up rat poison which was placed in a closed container under our decking. The vet said the rats probably dragged some out 😐 so unfortunately I will never risk that again. Our garden backs onto a field so you could never get rid of them all anyway!

Good luck on compost mark 2!
We have very successful compost, so many teeny worms it's amazing!

And yes I didn't know about tomato seeds, yes we have many seedlings!

And sunflowers too, it seems.

I was amazed that tea bags don't compost, they are plastic basically. I let ours dry out, then add them to the coffee grounds mug, for putting in the compost.

It's basically magic, making compost, it's wonderful

I’ve had reasonable success keeping rats at bay with wire mesh under the bottom of compost bin.

@Howzaboutye
I didn't know about the tea bags, do they all have plastic in them?
I have been putting tomatoes in too lol !