i want to make compost!

pendragon_arther

Not green waste but my compost rots down in a month or so by adding paper and cardboard. All our peelings, fruit cores etc produces 20 - 30 litres pa. Worms help to rot it faster and if there's any ants nests I put those in too to speed up the process. To eliminate too many of those tiny flies I open the lid enough to attract beetles etc to cut down the numbers.

anotheruser

Ideally, you'd want to purchase some compost to dig in to your soil AND start making your own.

From scratch, it will take a few years to get going too. We're coming into our third year of ours and it's only just producing. It's in a sunny position, which sees sun from about 10am until the end of the day and it's black to attract the heat.

We also put old bits of compost from flower pots in there too.

Remember though, something is better than nothing and it's fun to see first hand what you put in turns into compost.

Patience is the key.

Mojisola

pendragon_arther wrote: »

Not green waste but my compost rots down in a month or so by adding paper and cardboard. All our peelings, fruit cores etc produces 20 - 30 litres pa. Worms help to rot it faster and if there's any ants nests I put those in too to speed up the process. To eliminate too many of those tiny flies I open the lid enough to attract beetles etc to cut down the numbers.

Processing waste through worms and composting through a mixture of heat and bacteria are two different things although worms will often move into a compost heap after the heating phase and help to finish it off.

Sometimes a worm bin is a better choice for making compost if you don't have a range of waste to add to it.

How much you can produce from either system depends on how much you put in. A one-person household isn't going to produce much worm compost.

sgun

Wellused, rats generally don't eat anything if they have good food sources elsewhere particularly grains. I have three large open compost heaps in my garden and the only time I have had rat issues was just after I got chickens and started putting the eggshells on. Having chickens wasn't the reason for the rats arriving as I store their feed in the house and the run is rat proof.

The things that the rats were dragging off were eggshells and parsnip tops so we now don't put these on the compost. They built a nest near the compost and you could see a clear trail of the food they were removing. After stopping putting on these things the rats moved on very quickly.

Mind you I am talking rural not urban so there is a lot of natural grains etc around for them to eat.

But no, I wouldn't say that vegetable waste on compost heaps is a problem, just keep an eye out.

andrewf75

asparagus1968 wrote: »

Hi all,


I only have one flower bed in my garden, the soil is really heavy, and often water logged.
I want to start a compost bin to help. I've started collecting tea ,eggshells, veg scraps ,etc in a plastic tub for around a week...
what next?
I have an old plastic dustbin hanging about, no lid though,could I make use of this?
could I go about making it into a compost bin,if so,how? No money to buy one:)

as others have said it will take ages to produce much, but I'd still give it a go as its free. Yep you could use the plastic bin, just cut the bottom off so it sits on the soil, then use a bit of wood or old carpet or something to use as a lid. Put torn up cardboard and stuff like that in along with grass cuttings and your veg scraps etc and you will make compost.

I should add that it might not help your specific problem with the flowerbed, but every garden should have a compost heap IMO.

Farway

andrewf75 wrote: »

I should add that it might not help your specific problem with the flowerbed, but every garden should have a compost heap IMO.

I agree, every garden should have one, I also add shredded bank letters, statements, & bills to mine, they soon rot away and no worries about them any details being used for wrong reasons by anyone

wellused

I have several compost bins on my allotment and although they don't seem to have rats in residence they definitely do have mice at different times of the year. As for rats I have heard say that you should never put potato peelings on the compost heap because in adverse weather conditions a rat would gnaw through concrete to get to potatoes if they need to, that's not my opinion by the way but that of a farmer.

Mojisola

wellused wrote: »

I have several compost bins on my allotment and although they don't seem to have rats in residence they definitely do have mice at different times of the year.

We had mice living in one of those dalek bins - central heating and food on the doorstep.

We had to line the base with strong wire mesh to keep them out.

wellused

I don't so much mind the mice apart from the fact that they eat the worms which are doing the composting, I hear that mice can get through gaps which you can push a pencil through so really small mesh must be the order of the day.

Mojisola

wellused wrote: »

I hear that mice can get through gaps which you can push a pencil through so really small mesh must be the order of the day.

And very strong otherwise the mice just nibble through it!