That sounds really good, especially for home heaps. Thing is, mine's on my allotment, a good, stout walk up a very highly populated hill. Might try anyway...
If you soak a cushion's worth of feathers in a bucket of water for a couple of months, the resultant liquid is a good form of nitrogen, strain off and feed to whatever at the same rate to water as comfrey tea. the resultant mush can be either used as a mulch around border plants, or added to the compost. They break down easier. Empty contents of cushion into a bucket or bag it in net, and hold down with a piece of net and a brick. or if in a net bag then obviously just a brick. DO ON A STILL DAY.
I have always found that feathers compost very quickly and I have persuaded my husband to visit the compost bin once a week to "water" it and i do think it makes a difference.
P.S. sorry I forgot to add that I soak the feathers in rain water for an hour or 2 before I add them to the heap. It stops them from blowing about and starts the rotting process more quickly.
We make our compost in a similar way to most of you - we also add our shredded paper and loo roll holders - trying to ensure that the ratio is even with the "green". We've also "made" the liquid plant food from nettles - but not too sure how to deliver the feed - at the roots or over the leaves,!!
mish2, Nettle tea can be used as a foliar feed, but as some plants prefer not to get too wet, like toms grown under cover, I would just water the roots.
I make a sort of (rather smelly) tea from nettles , i spray it on everything as a preventative for insects and fungi and pour it on the roots as a fertiliser. I get good crops of fruit and veg. but I still get black spot on roses and some years whitefly is a dreadful problem.
20 years ago I lived in a household where there was a bucket of sawdust kept in the bathroom for blokes to pee in. This added to the nutrient content of the compost heap and also conserved a good deal of water. No problem with smells as long as someone kept up the supply of sawdust.
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That sounds really good, especially for home heaps. Thing is, mine's on my allotment, a good, stout walk up a very highly populated hill. Might try anyway...
If you soak a cushion's worth of feathers in a bucket of water for a couple of months, the resultant liquid is a good form of nitrogen, strain off and feed to whatever at the same rate to water as comfrey tea. the resultant mush can be either used as a mulch around border plants, or added to the compost. They break down easier. Empty contents of cushion into a bucket or bag it in net, and hold down with a piece of net and a brick. or if in a net bag then obviously just a brick. DO ON A STILL DAY.
I have always found that feathers compost very quickly and I have persuaded my husband to visit the compost bin once a week to "water" it and i do think it makes a difference.
P.S. sorry I forgot to add that I soak the feathers in rain water for an hour or 2 before I add them to the heap. It stops them from blowing about and starts the rotting process more quickly.
We make our compost in a similar way to most of you - we also add our shredded paper and loo roll holders - trying to ensure that the ratio is even with the "green". We've also "made" the liquid plant food from nettles - but not too sure how to deliver the feed - at the roots or over the leaves,!!
mish2, Nettle tea can be used as a foliar feed, but as some plants prefer not to get too wet, like toms grown under cover, I would just water the roots.
I make a sort of (rather smelly) tea from nettles , i spray it on everything as a preventative for insects and fungi and pour it on the roots as a fertiliser. I get good crops of fruit and veg. but I still get black spot on roses and some years whitefly is a dreadful problem.
20 years ago I lived in a household where there was a bucket of sawdust kept in the bathroom for blokes to pee in. This added to the nutrient content of the compost heap and also conserved a good deal of water. No problem with smells as long as someone kept up the supply of sawdust.