HOW TO - MAKE COMPOST

Recently there was an excellent discussion about composting. I’ve pulled together all the various comments here. You can also watch KGI's video on composting here.

KATE’S ADVICE

I used to have a tumbler that we made from a wine-barrel but

1 you have to fill it up all at once

2. it seemed mostly to breed red-back spiders which are poisonous and

3. wasn't big enough (altho it was huge!) to work well.

Here is what I would do. Get something to shred the stuff you produce - as big a one as you can afford - try looking for a second hand one - the old ones had less safety features and this made them easier to use!! Get a petrol one, not electric, unless you know of a heavy-duty electric one (everything is different here in Australia!). Don't use the ivy; get rid of it ASAP.
Send all your prunings etc through the mulcher or shredder or whatever you call it. I have a 5hp Rover that has a bag attachment on the chute so it all collects in there and you can stack the bags away until you are ready to use them. Some of the bags of mulch I then use on the paths through my garden and I lay it down a few inches thick. This then rots away nicely all by itself and every year I scoop it back up onto the garden as compost and then lay more mulch down - this way you get 2 uses from your prunings! It makes a really nice surface to walk on.
For the rest, I make bays with bales of peastraw - you know, like second piggy's straw house(!) but without the roof (at first), with a hole at least 1 cubic yard or metre or whatever you have there and then I use some of the mulchings and lots of other stuff and fill the hole and put on a roof of straw and in a couple of months it will be beautiful if you get it right. If you turn it, it will be better and quicker, but I usually don't. Instead I put perforated pipes through it to let the air in! This way it also looks quite nice and you can use the old straw eventually and even rebuild the thing wherever you want next time with fresh straw.
As well as this I have a small worm farm especially to get the liquid for my seedlings. I also have a couple of tubes I make out of....please read about these here .
Next I have a plastic rubbish bin into which I put all the bad, seedy weeds and things I don't think will go through the mulcher or compost well, 1 shovel-ful of fresh manure and fill it to the top with water. Leave for a couple of weeks and dilute 1:10 for a lovely liquid feed for the garden. DON'T use this the day you are having people around for lunch - the smell can be unpleasant to refined noses but it dissipates pretty quickly! Also avoid pouring it down inside your shirt when lifting the watering can up to pour over a small lemon tree! Yuk! The things we do for our food plants!
If this isn't clear please ask some questions - I hate writing in these boxes and tend to abrviate things too much sometimes! The song "Don't fence me in" comes to mind.

The lawn mower is another great idea for mulching up stuff too. Every garden needs, I think, various compost alternatives and there are lots of good ideas here.

BROOK’S ADVICE

A few years back I did an article about compost tumblers for Mother Earth News that included field testing each type. FWIW here are some of my findings:

1. Despite claims by the manufacturers, they do not produce finished compost any faster than a well maintained open pile. Generally speaking, it's ten weeks, no matter what method you use.

2. None of them is big enough, even the double-binned ComposTumbler. Maybe for folks who need only handsful of compost for the flower gardens, but not for veggie growers.

3. The time-to-compost figure changes each time you add materials. That is, if you keep adding stuff until the "barrel" is full, you can start your ten-week countdown after the last addition, not after the first.

4. Ease of use. Most types are not particularly easier to use than maintaining an open pile. The crank-type (i.e., ComposTwin) are the easiest, and rolling-ball type the hardest. But none of them is particularly easy.

All in all, my conclusion was that unless there are aesthetic reasons (such as restricutive covenents in your subdivision) or lack of space for an open pile, there is little practicial use for these toys for anyone who needs lots of compost.

On the other hand, a chipper/shredder has great practical value. Indeed, if I had to make a choice between by shredder and my tiller it would be a hard decision to make. Mine can handle branches up to 4" thick, and I use it for making mulch, minimizing the size of what goes into the compost piles, and producing cover for the garden paths. A great tool, worth every penny of what I paid for it.

Let me add a cautionary note . I cold compost. That is, the stuff just sits until it decomposes. Basically the way God makes compost.

However, if you are concerned about weed seeds, then you should run a hot pile.
And the one (and only, far as I'm concerned) benefit of a tumbler is that you are more likely to rotate it, thus turning the pile, and assuring even high heat throughout. That will, among other things, kill perennial weed seeds.

JOHN WALKER’S ADVICE

He's a second to Brook's comments.
Spend your money wisely, not on a composter but on a chipper 'shredder.
Unless space is limited make as many compost bins as you can from recycled materials.
Don't fuss about turning. Nature's timeframe is good enough.
I have 7 bins, a chipper shredder and yesterday dug out three wheelbarrow loads for my corn and tomato beds.

PENELOPE’S ADVICE

In my experience chicken manure creates about the hottest compost possible. One year (when I was at the ranch raising chickens and not on my little city lot) I cleaned out the chicken house, soaked the stuff down, and I had layers/stratas of ashes in it when I dug into it to use months later. Don't stack it close to buildings. Also, ashes/cigrarettes, etc., dropped into dry manure (also can happen in a pine needle forest), such as in a corral, can smolder for a long time and pop up far away from the fire's origin and burn down buildings, etc. Remember the pioneers using buffalo chips for cooking fires??

IAN’S ADVICE

I cold compost as well. Although, to be honest, I didn't know it was what I did until I read Brook's reply above.

I put everything vegetative into a container made of timber pallets stood on end and nailed together. This makes the pile about 1200mm (4 ft) square and the same height. I can get the pallets free from DIY stores as they have to pay to dispose of them.

I don't worry about weeds except for very pernicious weeds.(ivy etc). Any wood cuttings like tree prunings just go into a big pile and eventually get chipped and used as a mulch. I do get some weeds transferring through the compost, occasionally, but it is not a serious problem.

When I need compost, I take off about the top foot or so (300mm) and then use what's below. Like Plumtreed, that foot of top compost then forms the start of the new heap.

In fall, I treat leaves differently. I run the lawn mower over the grass and get a mix of grass and leaves. I then bag this up in black plastic sacks and add a little water before closing up the bag. These bags sit in a pile through winter and by the following spring they are usually rotted well enough to use as leaf mould. I'm now in the situation where I have enough of these bags for them to rest two years before getting used. You just need somewhere to hide them away. I have a wood pile for our winter fires so they sit behind that, which is actually alongside the composting area.

PLUMTREED’S ADVICE

I frequently add a layer of sheep manure to the compost pile which seems to keep things percolating along. Any other manure should do the same and so would 'Blood & Bone'. I add some wood ash from the fire. I save and crush the charcoal before it goes in the bin. In dry weather I soak the pile with water.

I don't use potato peel, tomato seeds or, if possible, pumpkin seeds in the pile.

I don't turn the pile but I usually have to take a layer from the top before I can get to the good stuff. That top layer becomes the bottom layer for the next 'pile'.

I bury the kitchen scraps into the pile to avoid bugs and vermin.

I think compost is the best thing for a kitchen garden!

ILEX’S ADVICE

I bought a ComposTumbler (brand name) a few years ago and I've been quite disappointed with it. Mine is the smallest unit they make, and it's too small to heat up very much, even in the hot months. It takes a very long time to make not very good compost- it's lumpy, balls up from the tumbling action, and is usually unfinished. Surely their larger models must work better, just from sheer volume of pile.

In terms of commercially purchased units, I have heard that the composting "cones" work well.