Compost-a-poll

[Holly]

Hello all,

It's time to talk 'compost'.

How easy do you find it to separate your compost from other rubbish? How much do you use in the garden again? Does your council provide discounted compost bins or wormeries? How much compost do you create each day and where do you keep it?




Your comments may be edited and printed in the September issue of Grow Your Own

[FionaH]

I have bought discounted compost bins from the council, currently have three dalek types. One is a "Green Joanna" which is simply a posh dalek that composts a bit quicker All kitchen waste goes into a compost caddy on the side. Well it does if I have anything to do with it, the blokes in my house seem to bin everything. I think the council do green waste collection but they charge so I try to compost every thing at home. I do run out of space in the bins periodically and have garden waste sat in buckets waiting to go in.
My dad has a small wood chipper that I pinch spring and autumn for woody prunings and they go on the paths between beds.

[Incy]

Hi Holly that's a lot of questions you have there.

We don't find it hard to separate our waste really. The recycling facilities here are very good so very little goes in our normal bin at all. we tend to put veg waste in a bag and then pop down to the end of the garden with it every day couple of days or more if needed.
All the compost we make is due to be used in our raised beds once it is ready.
At least 1 of our bins was bought at a discounted price from the council, the others have been donated over the years by friends.
We are lucky enough to have a large garden so we currently have 4 daleks at the back of the garden rotting stuff down for us. 2 are now just sat rotting and the other 2 are getting new stuff added as and when we have it. We do produce a fair amount in part due to the amount of grass clippings we have but I don't think I could estimate how much per day.

[scarey55]

I compost as much as I can, I find it quite easy and it has become a habit with me these days. I have a green bin that I keep in the kitchen especially for things to go in the compost bin. I add all veg peelings, (I don't use potato peelings because I end up with too many volunteers) used coffee filters, tissues, dog hair and floor sweepings, egg boxes and eggs (baked and crushed) and anything else that I think will degrade.
I line the bin with newspaper which helps everything tip out easily and adds "brown" waste.

I have 2 actual compost bins outside - one home made (badly, by me ) and one from the council. I add the contents of the kitchen bin plus grass clippings, shredded paper, cardboard etc. in one and I use the contents of the other one which now has a year's worth of compost in it on the garden.

I guess that I fill the little green bin once a week with just the two of us in the house but it obviously varies depending upon what we eat.

I use all my composted "gold" in the garden, I believe it makes a real difference to my soil and it also adds worms

Lastly, I usually add at least four marrows that are actually overgrown courgettes, loads of pumpkins and all sorts of other spoiled garden produce and, this year I have managed to grow a huge tomato plant in the compost bin that I didn't plant

[rustylady]

I have two Daleks at the allotment, and a home-made (by me) wooden compost bin at home. All the veg peelings and "iffy" veg that the guinea pig won't eat get composted. Also the cleanings from the guineapig hutch, lawn clippings, and "soft" weeds. The only stuff that goes into the council green bin is woody prunings from the shrubs.

It's really easy to separate stuff, I keep a carrier bag on the back door for re-cyclable stuff, and a bin in the shed for stuff that won't compost or recycle.

Our council provide 3 bins, black for landfill stuff, blue for recyclables such as metal, paper, card and hard plastic, and green for garden waste (though they don't get much of that from me).

[chris]

We compost everything that we can. I've recently emptied a dalek that was bursting at the seems - amazing stuff... it's been my first "proper" compost 'harvest'

Our council offers compost bins for £5 I believe, they charge £5 for delivery as well - but at £10 that's still cheaper than £30 odd in the likes of B&Q/Wickes.

I didn't realise they did this, but shall be buying a few for the allotment. By my reckoning £30 from B&Q means I can get 6 bins from the council Well, that's the plan on how I aim tot sell it to my wife anyway!

We don't have much waste that goes in the council compost bins.. currently it'd be something like fish skin, or bits of meat that have been thrown across the dining from from the little one. I do plan on getting a wormery mind, and then composting as much as possible via this.. replacing my daleks at home with it. I've toyed with the idea of a Bokashi setup, but haven't taken the plunge yet.

I used to find it difficult to generate as much brown waste, but now with keeping chickens we generate more browns - so my composting balance is pretty good. I'd esteimate 60:40 in terms of greens:browns - which is great during the summer as the grass is cut often. I find this sort of ratio works well for me, as 50:50 was a bit wet. I work this out by the depth of layer I put in the daleks.

I also pour diluted urine in my daleks quite often (always after adding browns - somtimes when I'm too mucky to go in the house too !) It really does seem to help my daleks heat up fast. On cool days when you lift the lid to give them a good stir there's visible steam.

Every 4 months odd I have a lot of brown waste from our chicken run floor (wood chippings). I've almost reached the point in which this will need to be changed - so the plan is to keep this in a compost bin soley for this purpose - layering it in with a lot of greens to help the composting process get started. By the time I need to replace the floor again in the run it'll have at least started to break down, and it'll be transferred into the "normal" compost bins as browns..

I go around "poo picking" in my garden at home and putting the fresh poo straight into the daleks. Another benefit of keeping your own chickens - using their fresh manure is better than buying the pelleted form, which I've found difficult to find tubs that are not from battery farms.

Edit:

We've a few bins - the domestic waste bin which is collected every fortnight, a recycling bin (paper, plastic, metal, glass), a bag for prunings/grass clippings, and a food caddy for composting. The food caddy hardly ever goes out as the waste that goes in there is so small (it's sealed shut and kept outside), the other recycling bin which is collected every week is overflowing by the time it's ready to be collected...it's shocking how much packaging is wasted really.

[Bren In Pots]

How easy do you find it to separate your compost from other rubbish? How much compost do you create each day and where do you keep it?
All our peelings get wrapped in newspaper then they go in the kitchen bin along with tea leaves, coffee grounds, egg boxes, cardboard and anything else that hasn't been cooked .

How much do you use in the garden again?
Most of the compost gets put on my veg beds the rest is mixed with multi compost for potting on.

Does your council provide discounted compost bins or wormeries?
I've got two bins one council dalek then a Rotol bin bought for a £1 off ebay.

[Suky]

Everything I can gets composted. We have a small bucket in the kitchen and all veg peelings, fruit waste, egg boxes and any other non waxed or plastic coated card goes in there plus the tea leaves from tea bags. It gets carried almost daily to where I have a 2 bay bin at the top of the garden, sounds posh but is made of pallets bodged together. All the garden waste goes in here too and my son 'waters' it regularly for me. I turn and mix the compost frequently, at least 2 or 3 times a month and get four or five barrow loads of lovely compost about 4 times a year. Since I have been adding cardboard, torn up, I have had the best compost ever.
For general waste we have the black wheelie bin for non recyclables, collected fortnightly, paper, glass, hard plastic and cans, collected the alternate fortnights and cooked food waste collected weekly.
All plastic that the council don't accept goes in a carrier bag (plastic) and gets put in the supermarket bag recycling. I reckon they supply most of it - they can have it back To be fair most supermarkets now recycle all the plastic from deliveries and off the shop floor and perhaps my bit will encourage them to reduce what they use.
Sorry, didn't mean to ramble on

[Florence Fennel]

Two daleks here, both bought at a reduced price from the council. Builders bucket outside against the fence so that my neighbours can throw their green waste into it along with mine. Takes a year to rot down, so only use it once a year. Although Sheffield council collect all the green waste in the City, they do not sell the compost back to the residents which I think is a shame.

[mothhawk]

How easy do you find it to separate your compost from other rubbish?
How much compost do you create each day and where do you keep it?

I keep a white 2 litre bucket next to the kitchen rubbish bin, and everything compostable is chucked in it except post which goes for paper recycling; then it's emptied into the dalek in the garden. I have lots of fruit and veg peelings, tissues, teabags etc.
There's only two of us, but the kitchen bucket I empty about 3 times a week into the dalek, plus all the prunings, weeds, etc from my very small garden, so I get almost one full dalek per year.


How much do you use in the garden again?

All of it. In Autumn/Winter I empty out the dalek (try as I might, I never seem to quite fill it, the level just keeps sinking as it composts), the fully composted stuff I spread all over the veg patch and round the shrubs and flowers, and I dig a trench for next year's runner beans and put the half composted stuff in that.

Does your council provide discounted compost bins or wormeries?

Yes. Bought one dalek for £7.50 and a second at half that price as it seemed such a bargain. I only have room for one, so I put the second over the top of the first one, the way you see them stacked in the stores, and stuffed the gap between with newspapers for added insulation. Even half full in January, you can feel the heat when you lift the lid.

(My council charge £14.50 per year for rent of a 140 ltr garden waste bin).

[Wendie]

Hi

I bought a green 'Dalek' about ten years ago, when composting by the council was just being 'invented'. I put all my fruit and veg scraps in, with newspaper, egg shells, tea bags and kitchen towels and some cardboard. Separating waste is a way of life now and if the husband throws anything in the other bin that he shouldn't, you'll often just see my backside jutting out of the bin, trying to reach it!! I have a little green 'Dalek' about 12 inches high in the kitchen to put all compostable rubbish in, each week I take the waste to the big one.

[taff]

How easy do you find it to separate your compost from other rubbish?

Very, because it's absolutely ingrained now, and I've converted other people to doing the same. From me, one small carrier bag of rubbish gets thrown into landfill about once every fortnight, everything that can be recycled is. From the other household, they do two carrier bags a week, which is a huge improvement over never being able to shut the bin once a week, because it was chock full of black bags. The polytunnel has one heap, of what gets composted during the year, but as it's on a farm, it's not the same, because they throw their household waste/compost on the dungheaps.

How much do you use in the garden again?
Everything I make goes back into the garden and it's never enough.

Does your council provide discounted compost bins or wormeries?
They do free daleks for some people, i did have one, but didn't get on with it, and they do the brown bins for fortnightly collection, never heard of them doing wormeries though.

How much compost do you create each day and where do you keep it?
No idea, a bag of stuff roughly once every 10 days, and the other house, a bag of stuff every 4 or 5 days. I have a little flip top bin thing on the worksurface, I use anything that's come as packaging to line it, when it's full, off to the compost heap it goes. The other household has a earthenware bowl, again with a lining.

[zazen999]

We reuse everything that we can. This means [in practice] everything that isn't so tough that it will break down in about 50 years; and is relatively healthy - so anything that is thick and won't be used for pea sticks and can't be chopped by hand goes in; and anything that has things we don't want again [like onion white rot onions fly] goes in the brown bin.

We have a thin kitchen caddy in the kitchen, and a 'Oscar the Grouch' mini bin outside the back door, and I use a kitchen caddy in the greenhouse - and all 3 get emptied every few days into the main compost bin. Also, anything that looks particularly scrummy [peelings-wise] gets chopped into really small pieces and put into the wormery. If I have a big harvest at the plot, with lots of cabbage leaves for example, they go into a trug and get put into the compost bin the next trip to the garden.

We have one dalek which gets the first step of compost. This usually reduces in size whenever we fill it, so twice a year we [well, Mr Z] lifts it and puts everything that is at the next stage into the neighbouring wooden bin [made by me], and that is used as a mulch direct on the beds at home.

We use the worm wee in the watering cans. And bring comfrey from the plot and use it in my tomato pots [chopped up].

We have various pallet compost bins at the plot; and everything is composted - apart from onion white rot stuff which is brought home and put in the proper bin.

I don't know if our council does discounted stuff - we got our dalek from Nottingham council a few years back so I guess they did or we wouldn't have bought it. We have made all the others or use green bins from freecycle, which are dotted around the plot for the 'first stage' breaking down at the lottie.

Pretty much the only thing that goes into our black bin at home is wrappings; and the odd 'I can't eat it' scrapings from Mr Z's Daughter. Plastic bottles and milk cartons are reused at the plot filled with water to weigh down netting and are then recycled in the bins.

[reetnproper]

I compost everything I can. We have 2 black composters, 1 from the council when they were giving them away a few years ago and another from a shed clearance we did (courtesy of a friend) a couple of years ago.

Really, we could do with a couple more and will get them from the council as they do a discounted scheme. When it's ready, I use all the compost in the beds around October time, to give them a boost.

As for how much we create every day - that depends on what I'm cooking for tea/lunch etc and how much gardening I'm doing etc. It varies.

The only thing I can say for sure is that none of it finds its' way into the general waste bin.

Reet
x

[gojiberry]

We don't generate a great deal of kitchen waste (one small bag a fortnight) which goes to the council recycling. The reason for such a small amount is that all the veg is prepared as far as possible on the lottie before I take it home. All cardboard and paper is recycled through the lottie much of it shredded and used as a mulch. Large cardboard goes down on the paths to keep weeds down. I have a home built 6' by 4' compost bin which gets emptied when need be. I even compost the mares tail which has its own compost bin and it is surprising how easy it is to compost it down. Grass clippings ( I get the whole lot from the lottie paths) are used as a mulch as I can't seem to get them to do anything except go into a slimy mass in the compost bin.

Ian