Compost heap contents, hoover dirt?!?! ..

Posts

• janine100 Posts: 11

  May 2019

  Thank you for taking the time to reply ... I shall save things up to add in layers ... Do I have to put anything else or just natural bits ?!?! A couple of people at the allotments said about adding some man made type additives but I’m not sure?!?

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• josusa47 Posts: 3,530

  May 2019 edited May 2019

  You can buy packets of stuff that are supposed to speed up composting, but I don't know if there's ever been a randomised controlled trial to show if they really make any difference.  I always use "liquid activator", a polite name for freshly-voided urine.  You have to add it within an hour, preferably less, because when urine is exposed to air, the nitrogen compounds in it start to turn to ammonia which plants can't absorb.  Or so I've learned from a fascinating little book called "Liquid gold - the lore and logic of using urine to grow plants."

  Anything that has ever been alive can eventually rot and turn into compost, but some things will take a very long time, such as wood, tanned leather and animal hair.  My compost bin gets:  kitchen waste, annual weeds, foliage of perennial weeds, nettles which I gather from a nearby roadside, comfrey which I grow for the purpose, spent annual plants, bulb foliage, shredded hedge clippings, grass cuttings, ash from my wood fired stove, shredded paper, toilet roll middles, egg boxes and at the moment, rotted horse manure which a neighbour recently gave me.  I don't put in vacuum cleaner contents because my carpets are mostly synthetic. 

  If you put in a thick layer of grass clippings, they won't rot (too wet) they will just turn to smelly slimy mess.  I shred all the waste paper that comes into the house and save it until I'm cutting the grass.  I put the grass and paper in the bin in layers and mix them together with a hand fork.
  

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• fidgetbones Posts: 17,618

  May 2019

  I like the fruit cake type mix. I just mix it all up, not in layers. Anything new gets stirred into the part  done stuff below.  That adds more air and it starts to heat up again.
  

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• fidgetbones Posts: 17,618

  May 2019

  T'other half has gone to visit his sister in wet North Wales, near Ffestiniog.   I am hoping he brings a car boot full of seaweed back to add to the heap. I sent him with strong bin bags and a big trug bucket.
  

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• hansen_stan Posts: 2

  January 2021 edited January 2021

  Oh, I understand you pretty much. I'm also a new allotment owner and don't really know how to compost things rightly. My father told me that you can compost almost anything but I have some doubts about it. You surely can't use any kind of plastic there but other kind of rubbish is considered to be good for soil. The funny thing is that I usually collect rubbish via my vacuum cleaner. Users from one Facebook page recommended me to read a review on https://petsmatters.net/shark-ionflex-review/  and I eventually decided to buy this cleaner. It turned out to be a good tool for mixing rubbish for further composting.
  
  

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• PurpleRose Posts: 538

  January 2021

  Hi and welcome to the forums @hansen_stan
  
  You can certainly compost a lot of things. Not plastics though and I would not recommend putting cooked foods, meat, fish and bones on it too.
  
  I put on my heap, veg/fruiþ clippings, grass when the lawn is cut, cardboard, rabbit bedding, garden prunings (but not weeds), tea leaves (excluding the bag as many contain plastics) and coffee grounds. 
  
  You need a rough 50/50 mix of greens and browns. Browns include cardboard and rabbit bedding and greens is for example grass cuttings, veg peelings. I also make the stuff going in as small as I can due as it will breakdown much quicker.
  
  There are quite a lot of posts on these forums about composting. Any further questions, ask as there are quite a lot of us who co post on here.
  

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• Dovefromabove Posts: 88,147

  January 2021

  Using ‘Hooverings’ depends partly on the type of carpets you have in your home ... carpets containing nylon, polypropylene etc are going to contain fibres that will add to the pollution of the environment and eventually they’ll be washed into the oceans ... 

  
  Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
  
  
  
  
  
  

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• Wilderbeast Posts: 1,415

  January 2021

  @janine100 @hansen_stan I probably 1 of those crazy addicted fools who won't leave compost alone 🤪. I wouldn't use Hoover waste, as previously stated it's likely to be full of micro plastic. I don't do layering as I have lots of bins (7 pallet bins so far) and turn them very regularly, I am aiming to hotbin compost so turning adds oxygen which feeds the bacteria and makes more heat. As I generate lots of heat I put all and any garden waste in and also any I can get from neighbours, grass clippings in my system are great as they cook fast and hot. I add all paper and cardboard, hedge clippings (even long stuff which I mow up), if it's biodegradable then it will compost. Beware the modern plastic like packaging which states it's compostable these need high heat to breakdown possible in my system but not in most and it needs to go in the council greenwaste recycling. Everything gets mown up before going in which does make a huge difference. It's certainly not as difficult as many say it is, of course it's helps when your nuts 🤪🤪🤪

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• Lyn Posts: 23,190

  January 2021

  Hoover contents only if you have pure wool carpets.
  Won’t  matter if you hoover them with the shark that was advertised here earlier or a plain old Hoover. 

  Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 
  
  

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• Lyn Posts: 23,190

  January 2021

  @hansen_stan. Your very young to take on an allotment,  good luck with the venture,  hope your COVIDs better . 

  Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 
  
  

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