What do you think to this compost delivery Ive just had?

greenbee

The hotbin is great, but it does need a lot of attention! If keep it topped up in exactly the right proportions and stir it properly, empty the liquid regularly and check on it every few days it’s fine. Seeds proud in the warmth and die. Although some tomato seeds seem to have survived. 

Tiny bones seem to vanish, but larger (chicken thigh or bigger) don’t - probably not a surprise. It’s happiest if fed it’s 2.5kg of greens plus paper/card and bark chip regularly, all chopped up very small. Eggshells need crushing. Mine also gets the hoover contents, hair from brushes, plug holes etc

Computable coffee pods survive, but crush when you touch them. My new ones are apparently faster to decompose which will be nice.

Work gets in the way of doing this properly, but it has kept food waste out of the bin for the last year without it smelling - even fish skin! I do top it up from the heaps of grass/water parsnip occasionally. 

silverwhistle

greenbee said:

Work gets in the way of doing this properly, but it has kept food waste out of the bin for the last year without it smelling - even fish skin!

Thanks. What about fish heads and frames? We had wild sea bass fillets last night and I used the bits for a fish stock before binning.

My neighbour gave me a load of grass yesterday and I now have a full dalek (mixed with horse manure)  and and overflowing bay in the allotment compost bins. This warm weather should soon get the volume down, and I have an empty bay to start on. Dumping the grass on the heap this morning disturbed a large slow worm, but they seem to like all my allotment bins and it's a shame there are so many cats around my home. Ten frogs showing their heads in my small pond, and the tadpoles now have vestigial legs. There's been a mole working around too so some nice fine soil to make my own potting mix.

With a nod to the OP, I think we are all going to have to do a lot more of our own composting given the demand and the quality available commercially.

greenbee

silverwhistle said:

greenbee said:

Work gets in the way of doing this properly, but it has kept food waste out of the bin for the last year without it smelling - even fish skin!

Thanks. What about fish heads and frames? We had wild sea bass fillets last night and I used the bits for a fish stock before binning.

My neighbour gave me a load of grass yesterday and I now have a full dalek (mixed with horse manure)  and and overflowing bay in the allotment compost bins. This warm weather should soon get the volume down, and I have an empty bay to start on. Dumping the grass on the heap this morning disturbed a large slow worm, but they seem to like all my allotment bins and it's a shame there are so many cats around my home. Ten frogs showing their heads in my small pond, and the tadpoles now have vestigial legs. There's been a mole working around too so some nice fine soil to make my own potting mix.

With a nod to the OP, I think we are all going to have to do a lot more of our own composting given the demand and the quality available commercially.

No idea - haven’t had any to deal with, but as it deals with small chicken bones I imagine they’d be fine. Particularly if they’ve been boiled up already!

I try to do one bay per year with the open compost, but really need more space as it gets difficult to turn it without a spare bay to lift it into. I’m certainly not going to have the time to turn it into really good compost, but it’s good enough to add bulk to raised beds and deep pots, or fill a bean trench. The hotbin would do a better job if I had more time too. 

Like you, I have slow worms in the compost heaps. And billions of frogs in the grass, which makes mowing pretty stressful.