How do I start a compost bin?

WEEZE210_2

Hi all,
I've done a quick search of the forum but not had much luck with basic info.
I would like to start a small compost bin as I have chickens and everyone has said how good chicken poo is in a compost bin. I only have pots and hanging baskets in my garden but have managed to grow some veg and flowers. It did cost a small fortune to fill all the pots this year so I got to thinking a compost bin would make a lot of sense.
Does anyone have some very basic advice please. My garden isn't huge and I'm definately no gardening expert but I am trying, all be it on a small scale. I have been on my local council web site and can buy a compost bin, 220 litres, for £14.00.
Many thanks
Weeze x

FOURCANDLES_2

If you have a small garden that compost bin for £14.00 is the way to go.I have a large garden and I got 7 large wooden pallets and created 3 bays a great money saving idea for the bigger gardener.

Davesnave

Put your kitchen waste (except meat) and chicken poo into the bin, add any light garden waste, prunings etc, then get a male to pee in it a few times. Keep doing this and your bin will be up & running in no time. It will slow down to a crawl in winter though.

Next spring, you may be able to take some material from the base of the bin, but you won't be able to use it on its own as a potting medium. It should be used to enrich whatever other potting compost you are using, or on the garden.

markandkate

Do not put cooked food in there. I also do not put in weeds from my garden as I think it causes them to spread. I have a plastic box in the kitchen and I put all my peelings, fruit skins etc in there and when it is full put it in the compost bin. You can also put in straw and shredded paper to bulk it up a bit. We eat a lot of fruit and so our compost is quite wet and so the paper can stop it getting sloppy

emiff6

Davesnave wrote: »

get a male to pee in it a few times. .

You men do have the advantage over us ladies when it comes to activating the compost heap. it's the same in winter - you can write your names in the snow, we have to use a stencil!

drtoby

Definitely don't put weeds into the bin - what you need is a mixture of 'greens' and 'browns' - greens are the living things, like grass cuttings, kitchen peelings and chicken poo, browns are the dead things like fallen leaves, bark chipping, cardboard. Try for a 60:40 mix greens to browns.

With your weeds, if you have room, set up a separate long-term bin which you wont empty for a couple of years. Or just put them in your council green bag.

Zazen999

You can put some weeds in; just not perennials like dock, couchgrass, mare's tail, dandelion roots or anything that has gone to seed as these can propagate rather than rot down.

http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/organicgardening/compost_pf.php

cjb02

I stick everything in mine. dandelions, couch grass, the lot. if it can rot down it goes in. but for me the keys is turning it regularly with a fork (once a month) so what ever is on the inside move out and what is on the outside moves in. I find this gets the compost bin hot and kills everything inside it and then I leave it till the following year.

As for hedge trimmings, I have a privet, so I use the clipping as a garden mulch round veg, then in spring I rake up twigs that are left and put them in the compost bin.

I have 2 dalek type bins and one summer i build up the contents in one and then next I build the other up. Occassionaly I get flies so I put either a layer of shredded paper on top or a layer of garden soil and that stops the flies. I also add man wee occasionally

it depends on how big your garden is and also why you want to compost. What I want is to put as little waste in land fills and recycle as much of my own waste as possible. I have not used my brown garden waste bin this year or last year come to think of it.

For meat, I have a wormery. but other things go in there to.

WEEZE210_2

Thanks for all the replies. I have took the plunge and have ordered the 220 ltr one from the local council.

Weeze x

morg_monster

If you have ever seen a rat or mouse in your garden I would recommend making it pest-proof (ie the bottom of it). Either a homemade solution with stiff mesh or I know the dalek ones have a vermin base available you can buy separately. Much better to do this from the start than have to do it when the bin's half full (and yes do I know from experience!). Although the rats do break down the stuff very fast!
if you do have rats about, I wouldn't put eggshells in the compost, they seem to love them.

emiff6

Now that I am using compost bins, I use the garden waste bin as an extra water butt, with a length of hosepipe to syphon water in and out. For eggshells, I keep a foil pie dish in the bottom of the oven and all my shells go in that, to be baked and dried whenever I use the oven. Then they can be crushed up fine and added to the compost heap without attracting vermin.
When I kept hens, I used to do this and then put the crushed shells direct onto the garden for the hens to peck. Always had eggs with rock hard shells, and never had an egg-eating hen.

I drown perennial weeds in a bucket of water for 3 or 4 weeks, by which time they have rotted enough to add safely to the heap.