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Composting shredded stuff
Hopeless Gardner
Posts: 22
i have ended up with rather more of this than I thought. Can I spread it as a mulch in its present state around plants and over the soil or must it go through a compost heap first. If so is there anything I can add to it to make it rot more quickly. I only have kitchen waste and annual weeds to mix with it. My neighbour has chicken manure waste. Should I ask her for some of that?
thanks.
juliatee
0
Posts
I'd get the free chicken manure and all the other bits and compost them together, you'll have great compost.
Thanks Dave
H.G. What exactly did you shred? too much of any one layer will retard the heap it needs to be mixed. Uncooked kitchen waste and weeds will do nicely try mixing in shredded paper cardboard and grass cuttings though not too much of the latter at a time. Use the chicken droppings with some straw and sparingly with the droppings too much will kill off the good enzymes and worms, deadly stuff in its raw state. You could bag some of the shredding's and put them out of the way do not forget to stab some holes in the bag with a fork and store until you have more room on your heap.
Some would say spread it around plants though any disease that was in what ever you shredded would not then be killed off, If I do not know what is in there it goes through the composting bins.
Frank.
Mix in lots of grass cuttings, Use a builders bag if you can get one and havn't got a spare compost bin. If not heap it up , wet it and put a tarpaulin or even old compost sacks over it.
If your shreddings are all evergreen, e.g. Leylandii they will take a long time to compost.
At this stage mostly a buddleia. I can hear you all shout about pruning in February but the plant is enormouse and is going to be dug out fairly soon. In my defence I am going to replace it with a dwarf variety.
other shrub varieties will follow soon into the shredded pile.
all good advice, thank you every one, only I haven't any grass cuttings as I have a tiny lawn which I cut with a flymo.
Thanks again,
juliatee
Well, we have over 60, 80 litre bags of shredded stuff to go on as soon as the soil is wet. All I do is sprinkle Bonemeal on the soil before using the shreddings as mulch. Been doing that for years and there has been no trouble with nitrogen loss that I can see.
Hopeless G; would we shout at you? Never! With Buddleia, they are so full of life that you can do what you want with them. I'm going to cut mine back the moment it has finished flowering to about 15 cm high. At the moment it is 2.5 metres high...and I know it will be back next spring