Compost

[Dave2002]

Finally got round to starting a proper compost heap/bin.

Is there anything I shouldn't put in it? What about coffee grounds?

[oddoneout]

This might be of use https://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/compost
Yes there are things to avoid, and yes coffee grounds are fine, worms like them (in moderation) and Waitrose put their used grounds(or used to, the pandemic will have disrupted it perhaps) in bins outside their stores for home composters to help themselves.
As with so many things there are conflicting views when it comes to the detail, and there are too many cut and paste ill informed articles in magazines put together by people without experience/knowledge but reading around the subject will give a pretty good consensus of the basic principles.

[gurnemanz]

Larger woody items are slow to rot down unless shredded first. Before I had a council garden waste bin I did just that. I now put branches and thicker twigs in the council bin and the shredder doesn't get used at all. Peach and nectarine stones and such like go in there but but don't rot quickly and go round several times. Egg shells are fine. We put tea bags in. Caution is needed - once we had some with a high plastic content which didn't decompose at all and years later I still occasionally dig one up.

Obviously avoid weeds that have gone to seed. I put them in the council bin. Some plants that self seed via compost are welcome, eg calendula and forget-me-nots. I do put most of the latter in the council bin to avoid over-proliferation. I cut the roots off vigorous spreaders like nettles and mint, putting them in the council bin and the foliage on the compost.

We have a green cone digester for food waste, so nothing organic goes in the general refuse bin.

[AuntDaisy]

Years ago, on Radio 4, there were readings from John Moore's "Among the Quiet Folks".
My favourite short story was called "Non Compost Mentis" and, ultimately, involved the deconstruction of exceedingly fruitful compost heaps...
Apologies for rambling off-topic.

This article might help:

https://www.allotment-garden.org/composts-fertilisers/composting-making-compost/how-to-make-compost/

[oddoneout]

Larger woody items are slow to rot down unless shredded first. Before I had a council garden waste bin I did just that. I now put branches and thicker twigs in the council bin and the shredder doesn't get used at all. Peach and nectarine stones and such like go in there but but don't rot quickly and go round several times. Egg shells are fine. We put tea bags in. Caution is needed - once we had some with a high plastic content which didn't decompose at all and years later I still occasionally dig one up.

Obviously avoid weeds that have gone to seed. I put them in the council bin. Some plants that self seed via compost are welcome, eg calendula and forget-me-nots. I do put most of the latter in the council bin to avoid over-proliferation. I cut the roots off vigorous spreaders like nettles and mint, putting them in the council bin and the foliage on the compost.

We have a green cone digester for food waste, so nothing organic goes in the general refuse bin.

It's not just teabags that may "ghost" your heap - so-called compostable plastic bags(including those sold specifically for home composting in some cases) may also need to make several passes and as they break down the small pieces may increasingly get spread with the made compost. I am on my third year of dealing with this... Suffice to say I don't use caddy liners now, I have come up with an alternative way of collecting the kitchen veg scraps.
Opinion is divided about seedy weeds - I have always just bunged virtually everything in the heap and I don't think it has caused too many problems - apart from anything else I can't control what blows in from the surrounding fields and hedges and since I don't have the resources to do the deep mulch version of no-dig I've learned to live with weeds. I have a good hoe(swiss reciprocating) and the seedlings provide free green manure/soil cover/compost material, but I do try to get to them before they seed in the first place to reduce the total load in the soil. I agree about woody items; since I gave up my allotment my compost space is very much smaller and I no longer have a shredder so I have become much stricter about woody waste as it is tiresome to have to pick it out to go through again(and again), although thin twiggy stuff cut up with the secateurs goes in and usually rots down enough first time round. It gets bagged to go to the green waste skip at the tip when I have the car out, as the council brown bin arrangement doesn't work for me.
It's all very much a case of trial and error; what works for one person may not for another - it's not an exact science, possibly more of an art! Over time you'll get the hang of it and be able to sort out problems, whether through prevention or cure.

[Serial_Apologist]

Non-meat food products are generally compostible (sp?) but our gardener is very insistent on non-inclusion of citrus fruit rinds, claiming that the acidity in them slows down and even halts de-composition. And paper and cardboard are generally fine, but not too much of the latter: as elsewhere huge amounts of cardboard get dumped by residents in the block from home deliveries. Foxes around here are terrible for dragging various things out of the heaps and leaving them strewn about the lawn.

[gradus]

We compost almost everything from the garden inc woody cuttings and only separate them when digging out for spreading. Blighted toms and potatoes go in the Council Brown Bin to avoid spreading the disease. I wish my compost generated enough heat to kill weed seeds, it doesn't but I try not to lose any sleep over it, after all what's a hoe for?

[Dave2002]

Non-meat food products are generally compostible (sp?) but our gardener is very insistent on non-inclusion of citrus fruit rinds, claiming that the acidity in them slows down and even halts de-composition. And paper and cardboard are generally fine, but not too much of the latter: as elsewhere huge amounts of cardboard get dumped by residents in the block from home deliveries. Foxes around here are terrible for dragging various things out of the heaps and leaving them strewn about the lawn.

Putting meat into a compost heap isn’t a very good idea, as that may attract rats and mice. Mice may even live in the heap. A green cone can be a solution - quite a good one for meat scraps, though the benefits of green cones for compost are indirect as the broken down material isn’t always used directly as compost. We did have a wormery once, which was brilliant for dealing with kitchen scraps, though unfortunately the worms got out once when we went on holiday, so our kitchen floor was strewn with dead worms when we got back. The great thing about the wormery was the liquid fertiliser it produced. Absolutely fantastic for orchids.

After that incident we couldn’t restart it.

[gurnemanz]

Non-meat food products are generally compostible (sp?) but our gardener is very insistent on non-inclusion of citrus fruit rinds, claiming that the acidity in them slows down and even halts de-composition. And paper and cardboard are generally fine, but not too much of the latter: as elsewhere huge amounts of cardboard get dumped by residents in the block from home deliveries. Foxes around here are terrible for dragging various things out of the heaps and leaving them strewn about the lawn.

I remember my father telling me that one of his neighbours found a leg of lamb buried in his garden. Presumably a fox's cache.

[oddoneout]

Non-meat food products are generally compostible (sp?) but our gardener is very insistent on non-inclusion of citrus fruit rinds, claiming that the acidity in them slows down and even halts de-composition. And paper and cardboard are generally fine, but not too much of the latter: as elsewhere huge amounts of cardboard get dumped by residents in the block from home deliveries. Foxes around here are terrible for dragging various things out of the heaps and leaving them strewn about the lawn.

Too much citrus in a wormery may be a problem because not all worms like to eat citrus but unless you have a juice business I think it highly unlikely that there will be enough put on a compost heap to make any adverse difference, but big chunks of rind may take longer than other material to decompose simply because it is thick and tough. Avocado skin is another toughie and can take several goes to rot, and the stones never seem to - nor does anything eat them (not even rats in my experience) which I've always found odd given they would seem to be a desirable high calorie item.

[HighlandDougie]

Avocado skin is another toughie and can take several goes to rot, and the stones never seem to -

I had a mysterious and rather handsome plant growing in a bed a couple of years ago which had recently had home-produced compost added to it (in France, rather than Scotland) which, on closer inspection, turned out to be sprouting from an avocado stone. I assume that the heat etc generated in the compost bin (which is always full of worms) had helped it germinate. Alas, it didn't make it through the winter - unsurprising at 900 metres above sea level - I having forgotten to pot it up and bring it inside.

[ardcarp]

Has anyone mentioned grass cuttings? They're good in moderation, but if great heaps are put in the compost bins they tend to go sludgy and slow things down a bit. If you've got lots (as we have when we get round to mowing) is it best to put most in a separate heap somewhere and wait for a few years?
Any other suggestions?

[oddoneout]

Has anyone mentioned grass cuttings? They're good in moderation, but if great heaps are put in the compost bins they tend to go sludgy and slow things down a bit. If you've got lots (as we have when we get round to mowing) is it best to put most in a separate heap somewhere and wait for a few years?
Any other suggestions?

Using them as mulch on flower and veg beds can be a way of dealing with large quantities all coming at once(so long as the lawn hasn't had any treatment such as moss or weed killer). Spread not too thickly it won't form a sludgy mat and the worms will enjoy pulling it into the soil.
When I have had a session with the paper shredder I mix the bits into the compost heap; so long as they don't form clumps they will be broken down quickly, and even if they do clump it's not the end of the world, they'll rot eventually or they can be broken up a bit.I did discover the hard way that newspapers can be a bit of a problem if they go in "as is" as they end up making solid papier mache slabs which are surprisingly durable and difficult to work into a more manageable form; they broke down eventually...

[ardcarp]

Thanks for the tip odders.

so long as the lawn hasn't had any treatment such as moss or weed killer

No danger of that!

[oddoneout]

Thanks for the tip odders.



No danger of that!

I've learnt not to assume, having come across people who don't think of mosskiller as weedkiller... Admittedly mosskiller isn't glyphosate etc but even so.