@Wilderbeast, I was about to throw out some old cotton tee shirts and wondered if they could be composted? Would I need to cut them into strips first? I knew you'd be just the person to ask!
yes indeed. Any organic material is fine - wool, cotton, linen, paper. You might want to cut off the seams as they are likely to be sewn with some tough thread like nylon; Or pull them out of the bins if they are left after the rest has broken down.
@Fire I'll have to give that a look. @Lizzie27 cotton will rot down but as fire says I'd definitely remove all the seems and stitching and then spend a couple of minutes cutting them up. Smaller is always best and I wouldn't fancy trying tug an unrotted t-shirt out with a fork will turning the heap
Thanks @Fire and @Wilderbeast. I knew organic stuff would rot down eventually as I've done that before but wasn't sure about having to cut it all up and didn't even think about the stitching. Usually my old tee shirts get cut up for dusters!
I don't cut up socks or t shirts, I just put them through several cycles of the composting. Worms go mad for book glue - I quite often put whole books in and they don't last long.
@Fire I looked at doing something similar to heat the greenhouse in winter, trouble is I'm pretty sure you would deplete the heat rapidly and then need to turn the heap again. Bruce is clearly more crackers about compost then even me 🤪
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I knew you'd be just the person to ask!
@Lizzie27 cotton will rot down but as fire says I'd definitely remove all the seems and stitching and then spend a couple of minutes cutting them up. Smaller is always best and I wouldn't fancy trying tug an unrotted t-shirt out with a fork will turning the heap