Don’t shred your files and unwanted paperwork, roll them into balls, it adds air space in the bin. Shred your garden shrubs after pruning, any cardboard boxes torn up a bit and any newspapers you can scrounge, rolled into balls. This is your browns.
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.
The insulation helps lots with getting it all hot, I save all the off cuts from my building jobs and fill the hollow section of the pallets. The bays are all wrapped in plastic sheet, old pond liner or anything else I have to hand it helps to keep the moisture in and stops the pallets rotting.
Finished the compost bin today - the lid is a composite (ie made from offcuts and glue) 75mm sheet of polystyrene insulation, wrapped up in a couple of layers of bubblewrap to seal the edges.
Bin now 40% full, and tomorrow I'll be taking some green trimmings off various things to go into it, and adding in the recent additions to the dalek bin, which I hopes has some good compost at the bottom having not been moved for a couple of years.
House now less cluttered with cardboard boxes, having shredded enough of those to give me some extra browns.
Now need to work out how to measure the temperature.
“Rivers know this ... we will get there in the end.”
And so it begins. Lifting the lid of the bin gives a waft of warm air coming out.
Suspect that is not yet at too hot to touch temperature.
Time to put a raincover on to seal any gaps, leave for a month and take the front off to check. Other than to add more bits if it shrinks.
Need to be careful with the activator during the day, as it seems if I am on the hopup step activating, my Rs shows, albeit in breeches, over the fence when next door are upstairs (trig. Calculation not anything being thrown in response). Activity for after dark only.
“Rivers know this ... we will get there in the end.”
Just opened up the insulated compost bin. The stuff was put in it mid-late autumn last year.
2 piccies, which seem to me to suggest I let it get a bit dry down below, and may have been a worm barrier. It has not been turned, 'cos the other bin to turn it into was not ready (it is now). Needs more moisture, which means more wee, which means more beer - cool.
All prunings and hedge clippings were shredded before going in, and there was much shredded (and unshredded scrunched up) paper.
Somehow more plastic wrapping had insinuated its way in then expected. Probably windows from envelopes. But that is easy to remove when clearing it out.
This looks like ideal mulch or bottom layer for a raised bed, but not perfect compost yet unless mixed with some bought in. Needs fewer mini-siticks.
Ferdinand
“Rivers know this ... we will get there in the end.”
Posts
Bin now 40% full, and tomorrow I'll be taking some green trimmings off various things to go into it, and adding in the recent additions to the dalek bin, which I hopes has some good compost at the bottom having not been moved for a couple of years.
House now less cluttered with cardboard boxes, having shredded enough of those to give me some extra browns.
Now need to work out how to measure the temperature.
Suspect that is not yet at too hot to touch temperature.
Time to put a raincover on to seal any gaps, leave for a month and take the front off to check. Other than to add more bits if it shrinks.
Need to be careful with the activator during the day, as it seems if I am on the hopup step activating, my Rs shows, albeit in breeches, over the fence when next door are upstairs (trig. Calculation not anything being thrown in response). Activity for after dark only.
Just opened up the insulated compost bin. The stuff was put in it mid-late autumn last year.
2 piccies, which seem to me to suggest I let it get a bit dry down below, and may have been a worm barrier. It has not been turned, 'cos the other bin to turn it into was not ready (it is now). Needs more moisture, which means more wee, which means more beer - cool.
All prunings and hedge clippings were shredded before going in, and there was much shredded (and unshredded scrunched up) paper.
Somehow more plastic wrapping had insinuated its way in then expected. Probably windows from envelopes. But that is easy to remove when clearing it out.
This looks like ideal mulch or bottom layer for a raised bed, but not perfect compost yet unless mixed with some bought in. Needs fewer mini-siticks.
Ferdinand