Compost help please!

ellay864

I have a Dalek compost bin, and it's been going for at least 18 months now without me actually using it. It gets a lot of fruit and veg peelings, and because it seemed very wet and slimy from them I used the green plastic degradable caddy bags. It also has shredded paper, brown leaves/little twigs, and hoover contents so there is a pretty good mix of green and brown.
One thing I struggle with is turning it so that's been rarely done, and what's at the bottom has been untouched for months.
Today I looked to see what the bottom was like and while there is some nice brown crumbly stuff, there's still a lot of egg shells and caddy bags. I was having to dig out what I could avoiding those.
Is there anything I can do now to help the lower layers form better compost? And anything I should do with what goes in from now on to help the rest of it develop better?

wellused

The egg shells won't rot down I'm afraid.

skyline

You could try an aerating tool to speed things up, http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dolmen-Compost-Mixer-and-Aerator/dp/B0050I2FB4

If it looks slimy you probably need to add more 'browns' (cardboard, leaves, shredded paper).

wellused

I have a worm composter and have found that too much fruit is a very bad thing leading to what I believe is fermentation in hot weather conditions, this is bad for the worms and leads to a sticky wet mess.

theoretica

Put gardening gloves on and crush the egg shells, they are excellent for aerating the compost. Instead of trying to dig around stuff I would take it all out and put whatever you don't like back on top - this is a sort of turning.

demystified

The fact that you have some decent compost at the bottom as well as uncomposted material suggests that

a) it doesn't receive enough composting material and
b) it hasn't been turned or emptied yet

Ideally you should have at least 2 compost bins, the first bin is filled up to the top with material over this current year, during the winter this bin is emptied out and the material is shovelled into the second bin, turning, mixing and aerating it. This is important to get even composting or you''ll find you'll get a layer of good compost sandwiched between not properly composted layers. Its a job for the depths of winter. Then it's left in peace for a further year to rot down.

Before that the second bin, which contains the previous years material should have rotted down nicely by now is shovelled out and spread onto the garden at the same time. This now empty bin is filled up with this years material emptied out from the first bin, as mentioned above.

So it's basically a 2-year rotation, one bin is filled up with this years materal and the second bin contains last years material rotting down. In the following winter you repeat the cycle.

As for smelly/slimy material thats unfortunately the trouble with small bins, with large open bins you can just get the fork in and loosen up the top layer, mix it up a bit. Small bins also tend to dry out quickly and are generally difficult to tend to, I sometimes wonder if they're worse than useless.

forgotmyname

I throw everything in without a thought of greens and browns. But generally it probably does get a good mix of each.

If it looks dry i get a watering can and give it a good soak.

Eventually it will go down. If its wet leave the lid off when its sunny.

I have stopped putting anything in mine now. I will empty it at the end of this year or early next year and start afresh.

I dont airate it or turn it over. Fill it to the brim and let nature do its work.

Funky_Bold_Ribena

I lift mine [and I have several] once a year, and put the uncomposted stuff back in, and rake or put the composted stuff on the nearest beds. If it's stinky, it needs more browns so put in cardboard, shredded paper, newspaper - anything of that ilk to balance out the greens.

[Deleted User]

I threw my dalek out and went for wooden home made slatted bins instead and they make really good compost very quickly. We line with cardboard and use 1/4 shredded paper and cardboard and no grass, everything put in gets chopped up to reasonable size, layered with comfrey and then very easily moved over (turned) into the next bin when that is emptied. I never liked the fact that the dalek was hard to get into and also a haven for wasp nests. The only time when my compst was slimey was when I used a dalek. I turn in late autumn when I empty a bin onto certain raised beds and again in spring when I remove it to the bean beds. Compost now is like crumbly black gold. I do have a piece of weed matting on top of the open bins, it keeps it warm and lets water in. I get a good two loads every year from two bins, although I have a third just in case I need overflow

Montmorencymon

1. Regarding those plastic "biodegradable" kitchen caddy bags: I don't think they are great. One thing I've started doing is using "newspaper origami" to make home-made kitchen caddy bags. There are quite a few videos on Youtube showing how to do this, and it's quite easy (even easier if you cheat and use sellotape or staples).


2. We have a couple of "dalek" bins, and they are OK, although I think they would be better with small ventilation holes drilled through. I'm currently trying to aerate, by a combination of poking long sticks in and out, and introducing cardboard tubes (like loo roll and kitchen towel roll centres), and occasionally giving the whole thing a good shaking. Actual turning would be better, but that's not easy with a dalek. I've thought about rotating/tumbling bins, but they are not cheap, and there are cons as well as pros.

3. I'm thinking of building a wooden bin from pallets. Had one before, but for various reasons got rid of it. I think I'd have a better idea now how to make use of it.

If one wants a hot bin (or heap), it seems that it needs to be big...at least one cubic metre, if not more, which means you have to stockpile the material until you have enough to make it in one go, and you need to get the proportions of "browns" (high in carbon) to "greens" (high in nitrogen) right.

Have a google for "hot composting", or if you want to be amazed, have a google for "extreme composting". (There is a chap in the USA who is one serious composter....mind, he does have quite a few acres, tractors and diggers and friendly neighbours to help out....his forum name is "forerunner" in case you come across him).


Usually hot-composting methods (e.g. "The Berkeley Method") require you to turn the heap quite often, which is a lot of work. But I saw one blogger say that this is not necessary if you can get your ventilation right. One way is (I think), having a hollow tube running vertically down the centre, with horizontal smaller pipes running off. If you were handy with welding or knew someone, you could probably make this quite cheaply. Or something else that might have the same effect. Hot composting means something like 50-65°C. They can theoretically go higher, but this isn't necessarily ideal, as beneficial bacteria might be killed off, along with the bad.


There is a commercial bin one can buy called a "Hotbin", which is specially designed to do hot-composting even with smaller quantities, basically using clever ventilation and insulation I believe. It sounds good, but it's not cheap, so I'm not quite sure it fits in with MSE philosophy.


Oh, one thing I have picked up recently - not about making compost, but about using it after it is made and matured. You can make something with it called "compost tea", which is basically a liquid feed made from your compost with non-chlorinated water, e.g. rainwater. There is a complicated way of making it, involving forcing air through it, and adding stuff like molasses, and that is "brewed" compost-tea. But a simpler alternative is just to mix a few handfuls of compost in a bucket with water, stir well, and leave for 24 hours or more. What you are trying to do is let the good bacteria from the compost breed and multiply. Use the resulting liquid as a feed for your plants, etc. You can re-use the compost in the bucket a few times, then just dump it on the garden or back in the compost bin.

Compost - "black gold"
Compost tea "Liquid gold". :-)


Nettles and comfrey are well known additions to compost bins, as they break down quickly and contain important nutrients. One can also make "teas" with them. I'm currently experimenting & combining them with compost and water to make a combined "compost-nettle-comfrey tea". Still early days yet though. Fortunately, we have lots of nettles and comfrey to work with... :-)

Montmorencymon

Some compost-related links:

http://www.composting101.com/hot-composting-article.html

http://www.mastercomposter.com/pile/advbuild.html

http://digitalseed.com/composter/bins/palletbin.html