No more plant food

[cybermule]

Disclaimer: not drug related. That shit will Fuck you up.

OK, the current mission is project compost, which temporarily stalled while both my compost bins were full. One has been sorted out, and I may shortly be borrowing a third bin, so things can get moving again. I'm lucky that my council will take food, plant and cardboard waste away, so it was being recycled, but I have a feeling that they might be first against the wall when the apocalypse comes (look what a few months of Tory policy have done) so I like to be able to manage my own waste.

To make compost good, you need a lot of brown waste like twigs and cardboard to supply your carbon, and some green waste like leaves and peelings to supply your nitrogen. Food waste has hygiene issues, but you can manage that too, as you'll see later.

First the brown waste, which always seems to be in short supply. I just got my shredder fixed, and my job means I can scrounge prunings, so this will get better. I can recycle my own card and paper into the system (composting is the new confidential shredding, don't you know) and opportunistically lift anything I see lying around.

Green waste is easier if you just stick to raw plant matter. Food waste has a pathogen issue, but you can actually deal nicely with this with a bokashi system or wormery, both of which encourage healthy populations of those lovely useful red worms.

I actually use a bokashi bin system:

http://www.leangreenhome.co.uk/bokashi/bokashi-explained/

These, as usual, cost too much to buy, but you can easily make your own and the bran is reasonably priced - I buy my in bulk in a co-op system with one of my gardening clients. I was in the right place at the right time and bagged two bins on Freecycle. They have taps on the bottom which you can use to drain the juice, dilute it and use as really stinky plant feed. Which I'm going to do from now on, hence the title. Interestingly, my compost bins were also blagged, so a zero cost system for me :)

Inside the bin - bran and scraps make neophyte compost. I always forget to put the strainer in the bottom :o)

I got to have these bins because the previous owner found the lids too fiddly, and to be fair, after the initial *eyeroll*, I had to agree. I strongly believe that things need to be convenient to actually be useful, so a little bit of waste plastic'n'elastic later, the bin looks like a jampot at an evil WI meeting, and the problem is solved.

The seething jampot, plus the really irritating and now discarded lid.

It's now just outside the front door, propped on two bricks for maximum useability.

Comments

[inulro.livejournal.com]

Our compost is made up of 90% coffee grounds and tea bags and everything we've planted in it loves it. I have less raw vegetable waste than most people because of the rabbits.

Rabbit and gerbil bedding & waste goes in the council's garden waste collection - the wood chip doesn't break down at the same rate as everything else (even covered in rabbit wee, the most caustic substance known to man) and since I acquired a plus-sized rabbit, we go through more of it than the compost could cope with.

Cooked food waste goes in the Council's food collection - if I lived closer to Janine it would probably to go to her for the chickens, but on the other hand there is very little because we really don't throw much out.

[cybermule.livejournal.com]

Same here - it's only really the sprogs that leaves anything. I'm glad we have a reasonably good council - if they could just sort out the mixed plastics, I could not have a kitchen bin any more.

Coffee grounds are great for compost :D If we ever have cars in the same place at the same time, I'll take some rabbit waste off your hands.

[quercus.livejournal.com]

How does it deal with eggshells?

I've just acquired another 220 litre dalek to put over the far side for "second stage" composting. I'm not keen enough to want to deal with wormeries, bran or liquids. I just want a kitchen peelings dump near the house, and enough space to store it long-term while it does its thing slowly. Only a few quid though (£5-£9 depending), thanks to the lovely Monmouthshire Council.

I don't shred, because green bag collection here is excellent, but I ought to get one for up at Dad's place. The quiet Bosches are the best, or so I've heard?

[cybermule.livejournal.com]

One of the ladies I work for has a Bosch, seems pretty good to me. We give it quite a battering.

Eggshells soften in the bokashi, then crumble and disappear quite quickly. Jealous of your cheap bins.

[toxicpixie.livejournal.com]

We've been Bokatchi'ing for a bit - it's great, gives really good plant food and kicks the compost (sadly only one bin, but now getting to the 2/3rds full mark!) into gear :D

See Lakers garden for details :D

Nathan, the Toxic Pixie

Ps. the lids aren't fiddly, it's using them as a plant shelf that makes it difficult ;)

[cybermule.livejournal.com]

My lids are really fiddly.way too tight. I could probably manage with one bin too - I don't fill it that fast. I think you're supposed to leave them to stand for a while, but I vaguely remember that being something to do with meat scraps.

Anyhow, thanks for the blog link. Gonna have a look now :)

[toxicpixie.livejournal.com]

I like the stiffness of lids, they give a very satisfying click when you pop them on or off :D With two bins we fill one, leave it two weeks to mulch down then empty it into the compost & cycle back through them. The extra time means they're really full of goodness when they go in :)

We got ours via B'ham council - their recycling post collection is a bit duff but they are trying!

Hope you enjoy the blog - it's a labour of love on Bexs' part :)

[mallt.livejournal.com]

I love the idea of composting & the resulting compost & I had 2 at the old house... but they kinda squick me out. I know if you do it right & have the right mixture of greens & browns they shouldn't smell & they didn't all the time but when they did it was enough to make me want to be sick! So I've been looking into "in-situ" trench composting & as I plan to do raised beds with lasagna sytle I thought I might give it a go.

[cybermule.livejournal.com]

You need much more brown stuff than you think, or it turns to slime. Done that one lots.

I've read some stuff on just hoeing in your peelings. Possibly called sheet composting. And lots of people I know pile their kitchen waste into runner bean trenches. It's a good idea, although I think I remember something about the breakdown temporarily locking up nutrients. I sort of go somewhere in the middle and empty the bins when they're a sort of rough mulch texture