Situational Composting

[zazen999]

When we first got our plot - we diligently set up a compost area; put pallets together and each year we traipse all the compostable material to the compost area and back again when it is done.

So, after having all the bad manure trashing our lovely soil - I am mainly composting on the vvv bad area in order to dilute it's effects.

All the compostable material for that year will go to that bed; but here's the rub - we won't be moving it off, it will stay where it is.

After doing this I came to the conclusion that having a stand alone compost area is a bit of a waste of space; and time, and energy.

I am now practicing Situational Composting - so in places around the plot, on the beds - I am putting all the compostable material. I have the big bed as above, a Dalek and a 'nearly Dalek cone' and a green cone.

The Daleks sit on different beds each year, and get filled all summer and autumn and in the spring, it will be lifted and any non-composted material will be shipped to it's next position, and the composted stuff will just be raked around that bed.

As I have 2 moveable Daleks, I can have one at either end of the plot - so less time and energy spent walking with 'stuff'. And no barrowing compost back up once it's done.

The Green Cone which is usually for kitchen waste - will be used for perennial weeds only. You don't ever empty it - as it has a cage at the bottom under ground and the worms can move in and out and take the composted material deep underground.

The pallets will be reused - as salad bars - at the back of the plot in the shade - on their ends, filled with compost and planted up with lettuces - and the spare space vacated can be used for planting or [shock horror] a seating area - with flowers so my wildflower patch can be shifted there over the next year.

It means as the Daleks move around, the beds all get a fresh covering of compost every few years without having to endlessly barrow stuff round the plot. The big bed is now piled up with compost and I'll be sticking squashes in the top [the good stuff] and growing them up a vertical Wall of Squash.

[Two_Sheds]

The Daleks sit on different beds each year

Yep, it's good. It's been saving me a lot of backache these last few years

I've found the climbing beans really love to be planted on the compost site too, so I'm on the lookout for a 7th dalek from freegle

[taff]

I'm planning on similar.
Where the compost bin currently is, the ground under there is fab, it's had the benefit of all the juices running off the compost, the black gold stuff, it's had the benefit of being tunneled into by hoards of worms, the normal ones in that area are massive, easily the thickness of half a pencil when they're strung out...
All that goodness could have been used by the soil elsewhere.

After I built the first hugel bed and shoved any available space between the wood with kitchen waste I'd been saving in bags, I discovered when planting some bergamot in the bed, that brandling worms will find the waste wherever it is, so that bodes well for throwing it anywhere it's needed.
I've surrounded the plum tree [tiny one] with kitchen waste and then covered with rhubarb leaves, and we'll see what happens there.
I can't wait to make a keyhole bed, because the center of that will be a repository for some kitchen waste too.
I left all the bean vines and courgette plants last year on the beds over winter, and scooped up the main stems that hadn't rotted this year, instead of the usual put them on the heap. I'll do the same this year with more of the used plants, inlcuding the potato haulms.

[Two_Sheds]

I left all the bean vines and courgette plants last year on the beds over winter

That's especially good for sweetcorn stalks, which are very tough in autumn and hard to chop for the compost heap, but barely anything remains in early spring. They provide hibernation for ladybirds etc, and protect the soil from dessicating winds

In spring when you need the ground, gather up what's left (not much) and compost it

[Kaiya]

That's a good idea. Next time I plan a plot I'll do that I think - put a dalek at the North end of the beds that will be potato, squash and beans the next year (I have 3 daleks). I inadvertantly did it this year as I had a dalek in a position that became the potato bed. It's a very happy bed now.

The only reason my static daleks are sensible for me at the moment is that they are mostly full of horse manure. I've tested that stable previously for aminopyrallid but will be testing each batch before spreading it, so static daleks not already on beds are less of a contamination risk.