Composting for idiots

[QueenOfWeeds]

Help please! We have recently bought a new house with a much bigger garden than we are used to. There used to be an open wooden compost bin type thing, but it’s now just a sort of…pile of sticks and twigs and leaves where the garden was presumably cleared for photos.

How do we start to fix it? Or should we scrap everything, buy a new compost bin, and start again? The house also has a garden waste bin, so I’m assuming we should just put all the dry garden waste in there?

I'm not totally clear on the question- is the open bin still there or not?

Basically the bigger you can make the bin, the hotter it gets and the quicker it breaks down. People with large gardens often have 3 large bays (maybe each bin 1.5-2m square). If you have space for that kind of setup you can just pile it all in! If you have a smaller bin you'll probably want to avoid too many branches and twigs and stick to finer stuff.

Sorry, yes - the open bin is still there but buried under a big pile of dry matter which doesn’t appear to be breaking down, and would need to move it all to get to the proper compost underneath.

I'm very into composting and do use what I make, but it's quite a lot of work and can take up quite a lot of space (and time) to do it properly.

Do you want to make compost to use, or just a space where you can get rid of stuff, and it will rot down eventually?

From what you say I would clear away as much as you can in the garden waste bin (May take more than one collection, or a trip to the tip) and start again.

If there is composty looking stuff at the bottom now is quite a good time to spread it around the garden as a mulch.

Can you build another bin adjoining it? Move the unrotted stuff to the empty one, mix in some greens (grass clippings etc) to get it going, use the composted stuff. Then when the first bin is empty, turn everything from the other one into it, and start filling the now empty bin.

This sounds useful, thanks all. We definitely want to use it, but we haven’t had a proper garden before so it’s all new to us. Will have a clear out of the dry stuff and see what’s underneath!

I was under the impression that the lidded plastic compost bins would be more efficient because they are sealed, but is the open one better?

It's the bigger, the better- the heat comes from the decomposition process itself. The daleks being round are much smaller in volume. 4ft cubed is the ideal minimum and if you have a big garden and will be generating lots of waste, go for that.

Thank you so much!

Clear out the dry stuff, it won't rot quickly. You need a nice mix of weeds, vegetable waste and layers of soil then add a bit of the dry stuff. Don't put any bindweed, nettle roots etc in the compost. Grass cuttings go slimy in a heap, I just put them directly on the flower beds as mulch. Autumn leaves need to go in a separate place or in very thin layers. The heap needs to be moist not wet so stick a lid ( bit of plywood or couple of rubble bags) on it especially over winter. Composting can get to be a bit of an obsession.....

We have 3 bays. One nearly done. One currently being filled and the 3rd for what we cut waiting to be shredded (this is my husbands obsession, he uses the lawnmower to shred). It does make a difference. Compost much faster.

I put on all veggie cuttings, peelings, coffee grounds, egg boxes, toilet roll holders along with garden waste. We put some grass cuttings. Too much and as another poster said it will go to slime.

I don’t add weeds, rose clippings (I have black spot), some very seedy plants or the compost will be full of them when you spread it.

I do turn the bins once a quarter and give it a good pronging with a fork regularly to aerate it and make sure it’s not too dry.

Anyone else skim read thread title as "Composting Idiots"?!!

It’s not that they’re round, it’s that they’re tall and thin. Heat produced is proportional to volume, heat loss is proportional to surface area. So you want a shape that has a large volume for its surface area. Best would be a sphere, but that has practical problems. A cube doesn’t roll away and is easy to build. A circular cylinder of same height as diameter would be good, but a tall dalek is increasing surface area and heat loss for not much increase in volume.

There’s a bit of simplification in the above that heat loss is less against the ground.

A compromise on covering is not to cover while you’re filling (irritating to arrive at the bin with an armful of weeds and find the lid is still on) but waterproof cover once it’s maturing. But make sure it’s moist enough. Full of worms - good, full of ants or woodlice - too dry.

I’ve got a big garden by modern housing estate standards but tiny compared to some on here. I have 4 bins approx 3ft cubed.

Grass cuttings go slimy in a heap They’re OK about 10cm deep and give a useful nitrogen and hence heat burst.

I add everything @almondfinger does, plus weeds (but not roots of bindweed). Basically, I try to make sure no nutrient is lost from the garden. In fact I do lose some, because I give spiny clippings to the council, and of course I eat fruit and veg, but I pretend to myself that the toilet rolls, egg boxes etc compensate for that.

Most of my troublesome weeds (Lesser Celandine, Enchanter’s Nightshade) are everywhere so I don’t have to worry about them spreading.

To get good useable compost is quite a lot of work, but well worth it if you have space.

You need a good range of stuff to go on it, and you will need to turn it which can be heavy work. There is loads of useful info on YouTube.

I echo what everyone says about size. It is possible to make compost in a Dalek type bin but it's not easy. I used to have two 1m cubed bins and a rotating bin and I never got anything satisfactory. I went on a day course with Charles Dowding and converted to one big bin 2m by 1m. Everything goes on it except bindweed and spiky stuff (and leaves which go in the otherwise unused rotating bin). It's much easier to manage and delivers beautiful stuff. Small bins just don't get hot enough in the UK unless you manage them very carefully.

Lol this is a bit ott for the question! In practical terms you start with the space you have. So if you have a 1m squared space you're better using it all (with a cuboid) than buying a dalek to fit, which won't fill the space.

I think 'the bigger the better' covered it :)

But to add - it's the volume of 'stuff' that matters, any container will work best when it's full. So I'd keep the stuff you have and shred any chunky twigs if necessary- get a big pile going all at once instead of building it up slowly if you can.

This sounds excellent!

Oh, a one day course sounds good! I hadn’t realised it was going to be any more complicated than “shove all the garden stuff in the big bin”, to be honest.

But DH will be happy that we don’t need to buy a new compost bin!

I did a no dig day course as a Christmas present one year. It was practical and inspiring. He also has a lot of books and YouTube videos that are worth a look. www.charlesdowding.co.uk/education/homeacres-courses

Also recommend Bokashi for getting things off to a good start eg evengreener.com/collections/bokashi-bins?page=1

What you could do is get a large raised planter and transfer the dry stuff to that, then cover with compost on top, it'll take up the bulk of the room but also breakdown in situ and you can plant other things in the compost on top.

@Singleandproud this is a good idea!! DH wants to put some raised beds in, so that would kill two birds.

It's what we did with my mum's raised beds as they were going to cost a fortune to fill with shop soil which seemed a bit daft when she had a couple of half done compost bins. So just put a load of branches and more fibrous stuff in first as drainage, half done compost and then then the new stuff on top.

The only thing I'm not sure about is if is if there are any nasties in the soil from diseased plants etc whether it would get hot enough to kill the pathogens. Mum was happy to experiment and waste spending ££££ on plants to go in it and the sunflowers loved it.

I've done this too, it's based on the German technique called hugelkultur. It's great if you have a big garden which produces lots of offcuts and prunings

I don’t turn my compost. The only turning it gets is when I’ve just emptied a bin and I tip into it the unrotted stuff from the top of the next bin. I get good compost.

I’m sorry @napody that my post didn’t meet your standards (I wonder therefore why you quoted it in full).

Like any post here, it’s not just the OP reading the answers. I’m sure I'm not the only one reading all the answers to see what I can learn.