Compost Bin in garden - is it working?

Lotus-eater

Ally, I would take it all out and give it a good mix, if you have the space. Then see what's like, this is where experience comes in. It may be too dry by the sound of it, I suspect you haven't been putting in the correct ratios of brown and green.
Try adding some urine when you have mixed it, then for every amount of green kitchen waste you put in, put in 3 times as much brown waste, shredded or scrunched paper, or cardboard are good.

I compost 3 different ways and one of the ways is like this, yes it's true you may not have the full heating of a decent heap, but you can make it into a sort of huge wormery.

If there is still uncomposted waste in there and you add urine or some nettles to get it going, you should get some heating and that will start it again nicely. Just remember to give it a decent mix, add as much new stuff as you can get your hands on and see what happens.

Invalidation

Lets get a little sense here. Grass doesnt take 2 years to compost, (if its done properly). I am just starting to cut my lawn now, as I have done for the last 6 years here, all grass cuttings will go into the dalek along with all other compostable material. After every collector full of grass (and its a big one) I sprinkle a little bare earth. when finished, around 2 litres of good human pee is poured on. I will turn the contents of the dalek into the another dalek after 3 months and by Autumn at least half of the bin will be well composted down enough to use in the Polytunnel or veg area. Most of the grass will be gone. I also regularly put around 6 litres of pee into the bin every week.
If someone is talking 4 years and still doesnt have compost I would suspect the worms are eating most of it. Compost bins should be turned regularly, have copious amounts of pee put into it along with good old earth which contains many microbes that aid composting.
If you just pile a load of grass into a compost bin, it will crush down into an anaerobic mass and turn to smelly slime. But used properly it is superb compost material.
I also bung my teabags into the bin and lo and behold they have dissapeared too??
I should also point out I have hens and the contents of their bedding goes into the composter.
We also have a garden 'Muncher' and when pruning every Autumn, everything goes through it then into the compost bins.

Also just a point. If you are going to put nettles into a compost heap dont put the roots in as they will grow later on

ally18

Hi all,

Many thanks for the suggestions, I'm afraid I don't know the actual litreage of the bin but its about 5ft high and arnd 3x3, yes it looks like a hugh dalek!

It is sitting in the shade for most of the day. I have been putting all my grass cuttings in there which is normally 1.5 lawnmower boxes each time. I also put in there the usual household waste, teabags, peelings etc but what I have never put in is newspaper or cardboard or urine btw! I didn't know you could. I will also start and empty the teabags from now on.

It does look very dry from the top and the difficulty I have is trying to reach in to mix it up so I think I will do as you suggest Lotus-eater and take it all out to try and mix it up. I don't have another bin or the space to put the grass cuttings at the mo but as I have said, I am a newbie gardener and plan to make some changes this year.

Just how much newspaper should you be putting in really?

Ally

morg_monster

Just wanted to say that we have a dalek compost bin which is NEVER in direct sunlight and i had good compost from it in one year, I was amazed. There are two of us in the house; we pretty much filled the bin between March-November and then once it had rotted down, the most recent stuff had to be taken out, but below that about half a dalek full of nice compost about a month ago. I was good about mixing it (we had a bit of 2x2 designated the compost stick...), and added ripped up eggboxes, and shredded newspaper when it looked wet and slimy; and watered it with the hose when it looked dry; but didn't use any activator at all.

The stuff that didn't rot down was:
eggshells (only put in at the start; they then attracted rats so we put wire mesh over the bottom of the bin and stopped sticking eggshells in!)
teabags (this year I might rip open used teabags; tealeaves on the compost, teabags in the council caddy)
skins from whole tomatoes! We had some toms to compost when we couldn't keep up with picking at the end of the season; the insides rotted fine but there are loads of orange papery skins throughout the compost!
Also if I dumped a potted plant whole into the compost, the thickest part of the stem didn't rot down.

Anyway I was really amazed that we got usable compost in a year; it's great for us as we don't have space for a second bin. Seems due in large part to blind luck rather than a whole lot of effort...

ariba10

It is also recomended that you use "Male" Urine.

annie123

mrbadexample wrote: »

Incidentally, I've never found the slightest remnant of any teabag (all Yorkshire) in my compost heap.

That's interesting, I've never tried their tea, will look in sainsburys next time I go.

Lotus-eater

ally18 wrote: »

It is sitting in the shade for most of the day. I have been putting all my grass cuttings in there which is normally 1.5 lawnmower boxes each time. I also put in there the usual household waste, teabags, peelings etc but what I have never put in is newspaper or cardboard or urine btw! I didn't know you could. I will also start and empty the teabags from now on.

It does look very dry from the top and the difficulty I have is trying to reach in to mix it up so I think I will do as you suggest Lotus-eater and take it all out to try and mix it up. I don't have another bin or the space to put the grass cuttings at the mo but as I have said, I am a newbie gardener and plan to make some changes this year.

Just how much newspaper should you be putting in really?

Ally

Alot of newspaper, I think it's really difficult to put too much of it in.
To make quick decent compost, or even compost, you need to put something near the correct ratio of greens and browns in. Plenty of info online about it.

You can put too many grass cuttings in, I mix mine with alot of shredded paper and add that, works perfectly and composts in no time. BUT! if you put too many cuttings in at one time, it won't work.
So, don't put your whole lot in at once, or mix it up as it goes in, if you do have alot of paper to add at this stage it will really help.

And can I just say that worms don't eat compost, they make it if anything, they eat the natural materials that are added and poo out worm poo compost.

Main thing to remember is about three times as much brown waste as green. Or about the same by wieght.
Of course, green waste wieghs alot more than brown as most of it is water, which is why we put more brown by size in.

Somethings naturally have alot of nitrogen in, like grass cuttings, nettles, human wee, which gets the heap working, but beware, too much and it will turn into a smelly mess. So if you add some of this, add dry browns and mix well.

The best way to build a heap is to build a huge one all at once, this will then heat up and rot partially down, the worms will then move in and finish the job over a period of months, depending on the weather.
If you do it bit by bit, it won't heat up so much, if at all, but the worms will do the whole job providing the mix is still right.

If you can mix up your bin now, add grass and anything else which is needed, you can effectively restart a whole bin load, which should heat up and get going. Then when the bin is full, stop using it and leave it till the worms have finished. Then start another bin.
If when you look in after it has cooled and there are no worms, something is wrong. DON'T go and buy worms, that's just ridiculous, if you provide the right conditions they will turn up and breed.

Orange_King

I have a similar dalek to the one discussed above and have been treating it to plenty of household waste, some grass cuttings and sods of the lawn I cut up last year. I have tried to break the sods down with a spade but this still leaves rather large lumps.

It is still very slushy from top to bottom so I suspect more paper/cardboard is required. Is it true that pee shouldn't be added during the winter?

annie123

Op, I have 2 plastic bins and fill one first, then leave that, then start one the 2nd one, by time thats almost full the first is ready. I lift the whole plastic thing off, so its easy to remove anything not composted enough into the the other bin, and its easy to shovel up and spread around the garden.
Once you have a 2 bin cycle going its easy to get a good supply.

Good instructions here on how to/what can be composted.

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

Sambucus_Nigra

Also a way to speed up composting is, when you put anything from your kitchen in - chop it up as small as you can. The smaller the better. Wrap it up in a few sheets of newspaper and that adds air and browns to your greens. Grab a bag of shredded paper from work and stuff it in. Then pop grass clippings on. We don't have any grass clippings, but even though there is only 2 of us, I have 1 dalek, 1 builders bag sized wooden composter and the dalek makes enough 'near ready' compost to fill the wooden one 3 times over each year; plus we have a wormery and 2 pallet sized composters at the lottie. And we are always running out of composting space!

You should be able to fill your dalek up to the brim almost every fortnight, and it should drop down to half height next time. If the level never changes from the last time you put a load of stuff in, then something is wrong. You should have worms, again if not, something is wrong. If it's too wet, add browns, give it a good mix and then start adding a good mix. If it's too dry, add water, mix and start adding a good mix. Do some research on composting and keep an eye on what's going on in there; it's an eco system of it's own and should never smell horrid.