Gardening beginner. Composting help please!

Piggles12345

Hi all,

I am hoping that some of you greenfingered experts could give me some advice on composting!!

I have a small garden but I want to get a compost bin as I feel so guilty sending food waste and garden waste to landfill!

I have a number of questions before I jump in head first!

1. What influence does price have on the quality of the bin? Are more expensive ones better? And if so, how?

2. Am I going to get rats? My mum had a compost bin for ages and rats gnawed a hole in the bottom section of hers and took up residence. How likely is this to happen to me?

3. Do compost bins smell at all once the lid is closed? I live in a terrace house and where I am planning to put the bin is quite close to my neighbours back door; I don't want to turn her against me by my green efforts!

4. How long does it take to make compost?

5. What can I put in the compost bin? Having only a small garden, I get very little grass cuttings but I do throw away a lot of food, is it okay to put more food than anything else in there?

6. As well as the actual bin, what else do I nee to start with?

7. Give me any other pearls of wisdom that you have about composting and your composting experiences!

Thank you all so much- I am so excited about composting (way more than is healthy) and I would really appreciate any help you can give.

valk_scot

1) your local council may provide compost bins, either free or very cheap. Worth investigating. They will all be the basic dalek shape and won't vary much in performance. Bigger the better though, assuming you can fill it. The best compost bins are a cubic metre and built of old pallets, with a lid, but most folk don't have room for two or three of these in a back garden.

2) Rats. Stick a bit of wire mesh under your bin to stop them tunneling in and be careful what you put in the bin. This will discourage them. But rats are a possibility, unfortunately.

3) Once again, depends what you put into the bin. It shouldn't smell much if at all with the lid down though.

4) How long? This is the piece of string query, really. Depends on what you put in, how you put it in, how wet/dry it is, how often you turn it and the weather. 6-12 months though, for a ball park figure and if you do everything right.

5) Veg waste, torn up paper and newspaper (non-glossy), grass and garden waste, seaweed, pet hair, litter off the floor of rabbit hutch or chicken coop. You don't want to add perrennial weeds (they will survive and spread), seeding weeds (ditto), diseased plant material, potato of any sort (always diseased) and any food waste of the non-vegetable variety ie cooked food/meat/cheese/bread. These last will attract rats big time. So no scraping the plates into the composter.

6) Nothing, except perhaps the wire mesh to go under it. You do know it has to be placed on soil, yes? This is to allow worms in. If you place it on slabs it will ooze.

7) There's a lot written on composting, but the basic guide most councils put out is pretty good.
You can buy accelerators etc which claim to be able to make compost faster. The home-made version of this is pee. Get an old bucket and put some in the composter now and again. Works a treat.
Lots of material at a time works better than dribs and drabs. Save it up.
You need a balance of dry rough stuff to wet sappy stuff ie if you have a lot of grass clippings or veg peelings then mix with an equal weight of shredded newspaper or torn up egg boxes.
Turn the compost regularly to keep it mixed and to encourage it to heat up. Best way to do this is to have two or more compost bins, but emptying it out onto a square of plastic then putting it back in the bin works too.

Err...there's more, but can't remember. Above is best practice, btw. You can make lazy compost too without all the turning, but it will take longer and be rougher. The only thing that's a real MUST NOT is not putting cooked food/meat/cheese/bread into the bin.

MUMMYTO2BOYS

This is a good site http://www.recyclenow.com/home_composting/index.html you can read up to answer all your questions and also check wether your Council is offering discounted bins.

If you ever feel like you're putting nothing but food (green waste) in then you can add wet cardboard or shredded paper.

We use a riddle (sieve) to get seperate the waste that's already composted from the stuff that's still clumpy and ge a lovely fine product which can be used as a potting compost, a soil improver or even as a top dressing for our lawn. Any big bits which won;t pass through the riddle go straight back in the compost bin.

We have two bins in our garden so one is in use at any time, the other is just forked through every now and then. They were approx £6 each when our Council was discounting.

Piggles12345

Hi both,

Thank you for all of your advice. The recyclenow.com website states that I can get a bin for £22 as its partly subsidised by the local council.

Thanks for the advice about cooked products- I had no idea!

I will have a look into it a bit more.

Thanks again. Have a good weekend!

brownhandbag

Hi Piggles,
Somerset Dorset and Wiltshire are all running free compost champion courses, which I have just been on one, and they are great. Tells you all you need to know!

A couple of things....... main reason for not putting cooked food and meat on is because of rats. It will compost but is more likely to attract vermin.
You need to think green and brown waste. Green is pretty obvious, grass, veggies etc. Brown is card, paper, sawdust etc. If you do a 50/50 mix of brown and green you will have success.

If your garden and waste is really small then I would consider a wormery especially if you have kids
There is a thing called a green cone for cooked food waste which looks good. There is a basket that sinks into the ground and the cone goes on top. Am thinking of trying one of these myself. A bit like the dog loo principle!
Put an ask on your local freecycle for a compost bin as they sometimes come up and may save you buying one.

glasgowdan

If you have a friend in scotland who travels down fairly regularly ask them to order one for you...they are still subsidised by WRAP up here and cost £8 for the exact same one as you'll pay £22 for

hungrynurse_2

you can get ones which are safe for cooked foods, cost a fair bit more though.

Lotus-eater

Piggles12345 wrote: »

7. Give me any other pearls of wisdom that you have about composting and your composting experiences!

Read the composting threads on here, there is one massive one.

But the best ones are:
Chop it up small as you can,
get the mix right,
put wire underneath the bin to stop vermin,
don't be in a rush, it normally takes about a year.