Compost

[Dave2002]

Leave the lid off and let the rain in for a bit?

The lid(s) are hinged - but I guess I could keep them up - maybe a stick or piece of string.
Re rain - hasn't been anything significant for weeks - though last time it did rain seriously the water butts - practically empty - filled more or less overnight.

Thanks for the suggestions - plus also the guidance about rates of production and disposal etc.

If I start hedge clipping the bins would get swamped - so will still have to take green stuff to the council dump.

Although neat and tidy hedges and well mown lawns can look attractive, they are fundamentally artificial - human constructs.
Nature left to its own devices wouldn't do that.

[oddoneout]

I'm way over the nominal top of this season's collection heap and only about a third through last year's spreadable stuff but that'll resolve itself within the next month or two as I spread compost on garden beds. Odders description of overfull over-dry heaps in a rain shadow exactly describes ours too but it always gets sorted out eventually. The heaps never make sufficient heat to kill weed seeds though and my compost spreading will produce a minor weeding problem that sometimes works out ok, for example I rarely need to sow rocket!

Yes mine are very much cold composting heaps for most of the time - summer lawn clippings can sometimes get the heap a bit excited - and that means seedlings when spread. Fortunately the lack of heat doesn't seem to mean that perennial horrors(bindweed, ground elder, creeping buttercup) survive to run riot, although I do try not to put in large amounts at a time and couch grass is often put in a plastic sack with docks and dandelions to do a bit of anaerobic "fermentation" for a few weeks first. Even if there are viable remnants left they are easier to pull out from the spread compost than established plants in the ground and many add useful minerals. As you say not all seedlings are unwanted/undesirable, and I like being able to share some of my perennial flowers with friends and good causes as a result of what appears. This year I have had several heritage lettuces pop up and they are decorative enough to stay in flower borders as well as the veg beds and run up to seed. Many will then germinate and come through the winter to provide "out of season" pickings with out any effort on my part - bonus! As my approach to my gardening activities has had to change in the past couple of years, the opportunity the surplus/unwanted seedlings provide to do a few minutes fiddling pulling them out as I wander round the plot is welcome. It is a reason to get out there even if only briefly, and seeing a small patch cleared is rewarding, as is knowing that those patches will gradually join up until a whole bed is (my version of) tidy.
The volunteers are also green manure which I haven't had to buy and sow!

[gurnemanz]

The lid(s) are hinged - but I guess I could keep them up - maybe a stick or piece of string.
Re rain - hasn't been anything significant for weeks - though last time it did rain seriously the water butts - practically empty - filled more or less overnight.

Thanks for the suggestions - plus also the guidance about rates of production and disposal etc.

If I start hedge clipping the bins would get swamped - so will still have to take green stuff to the council dump.

Although neat and tidy hedges and well mown lawns can look attractive, they are fundamentally artificial - human constructs.
Nature left to its own devices wouldn't do that.

I do try to let border shrubs grow to a more natural shape by pruning back branch by branch rather than using straight line shearing. This year I have also let the lawn grow more like a meadow, mowing only once a month to keep in check. Looks fine and less effort.

I have a green digester cone for kitchen waste not suitable for composting. It seems to work OK and stays shut.

My compost heap was made many years ago out of the remains of a replaced fence. About 4ft by 3, a post at each corner with spaced horizontal slats made from the bottom boards of the old fence. Not a thing of beauty but it does a job. If any bit starts to rot too much I just replace it. I have made the lower slat at the bottom front detachable to enable removing the compost - usually every second year. This arrangement tends to need renewing from time to time, ie yesterday.

[oddoneout]

Gardening is a series of compromises isn't it, what suits and works for one person and their plot won't suit another. My garden is very long but also very narrow and so more constraining has to happen than would be my choice on a wider plot. I am able to prune rather than shear all the shrubby growth though, except for a cursed length of conifer hedge at the bottom which belongs to my neighbour, and to which I have to take a power tool - carefully as his chainlink fence is on my side... He does now at least take the bags of clippings to the dump for me but the work I really could do without, the clippings take ages to clear up from among the shrubs and next year I will probably have to get someone in to do the cutting. The neighbour half-heartedly offered but the damage he caused clearing up branches that fell my side when he cut back his shrubbery further up the garden made me decline.
The other woody prunings are stripped of their leafy parts which, with any small twigs cut up, go on the compost heap - except for the likes of the rugosa rose! The bigger stuff goes to the tip.

[Cockney Sparrow]

Although neat and tidy hedges and well mown lawns can look attractive, they are fundamentally artificial - human constructs.
Nature left to its own devices wouldn't do that.

Along the boundary of our garden is a substation site (I can see on the original plan and the next plan where a neat, long chunk was taken out of what would have been our garden!)

In true post privatisation cost cutting the hedges have been left to their own devices - as far as the transmission network property managers are concerned. Every few years we request that what are now tree height (but long thin) beech hedges are cut back and down. We struggle to find the right department, and make our request very clear -the branches are nearer our neighbours walls and roofs but only partly shade the best part of our garden from sun - south facing. We want the growth cut down to gutter height, and cut back. The tree contractors arrive unannounced, and cut them back to ridge height, take the growth back from the wall/gutter but not so very far - so another visit will be needed in a year or so. Then they skidaddle, with the minimum amount of work and waste material to tick the box and get paid.

We've resigned ourselves to pressing every year for a bit of work as we fear that if pushed too far, they will remove the hedges entirely and leave us with a wooden or chain link fence to look at..... Network rail, not far away has cut down trees on the railway line with garden boundaries and the roots removed or treated so as not to regrow - at least that's what the house owners fear.

[Serial_Apologist]

It might be worth mentioning that this summer having been not only warmer, but much wetter than usual midway through, has been literally a field day for wild plant species growth and proliferation. I have never known our lawn to have to be mown with the frequency it has this year, despite our decision to allow it to grow higher and for longer periods as advised in the interests of birds and insects; likewise bramble growth, which one would have observed just by staring at it! This will have contributed to the problem of garden waste exceeding rate of compost decomposition; I think we can just about continue with our two heaps arrangement as long as this year's rainfall patterns do not become the norm in future. Unfortunately one of our border hedgerows - an accumulated mix of hedge plants - interfaces directly with the street pavement, meaning it has to be kept sheared rather than pruned, or the council will be notifying us about complaints from passers by.

[gradus]

Its been a great year for bindweed in these 'ere parts, never seen as much.

[oddoneout]

Its been a great year for bindweed in these 'ere parts, never seen as much.

Whereas in these parts it hasn't been as much of a problem as in other years, the big white version in particular noticeable by its relative absence. I have to say that is a blessing for the volunteer gardening I do where one of the beds is often over-run and the vines pull plants over and tie them to the railings. Trying to sort the tangle out without damage to the wanted plants is difficult. The huge compost heap on site does make something useful out of the hated stuff though, once it's been extracted from the beds.
I've just seen some of the alternative names - hedge bindweed, Rutland beauty, bugle vine, heavenly trumpets, bellbind, granny-pop-out-of-bed, for that plant.

[gurnemanz]

I experienced bindweed rampant in my parents' garden and helped them combat it. A futile undertaking - you pull out armfuls knowing it will just grow again. Fingers crossed, we don't have it in our garden, though I have seen it in the area.

[Serial_Apologist]

Whereas in these parts it hasn't been as much of a problem as in other years, the big white version in particular noticeable by its relative absence. I have to say that is a blessing for the volunteer gardening I do where one of the beds is often over-run and the vines pull plants over and tie them to the railings. Trying to sort the tangle out without damage to the wanted plants is difficult. The huge compost heap on site does make something useful out of the hated stuff though, once it's been extracted from the beds.
I've just seen some of the alternative names - hedge bindweed, Rutland beauty, bugle vine, heavenly trumpets, bellbind, granny-pop-out-of-bed, for that plant.

Forgive me if I don't get convolved in this discussion...

[cloughie]

Forgive me if I don't get convolved in this discussion...

https://www.flashlyrics.com/lyrics/flanders-and-swann/misalliance-72

[oddoneout]

Forgive me if I don't get convolved in this discussion...

You don't want to get wound up by convolution then? I sympathise, it's all too easy to get in a bind with the twists and turns.

[Dave2002]

Following up on earlier suggestsions, I wonder if it's a bad idea to put "gone off" fruit and veg from the fridge into a compost heap. Meat and cheese products are a no-no I believe - might attract mice, rats etc., and not decompose well.

Also, in previous attempts at breaking down organic matter using those green cone things, there were occasional infestations of maggots - which seemed undesirable to me - and as I recall I found some quite severe methods to deal with those.

Finally I noticed recently that we might have been about to have an infestation of ants in our house, which I appear to have dealt with (Nippon gel, and power in various locations), but I do wonder if some ants have decamped outside to the compost bin.
Are ants in compost a problem? They might be a nuisance to humans, but I'm not sure that they are otherwise "a bad thing". If they should be "dealt with", would it be OK to put ant powder on top of the heap?

We once tried - with very modest success - to grow potatoes in bags, but one hazard when furtling to extract the crop was that it seemed that a colony of ants had taken up residence in one of the bags. Didn't affect the potatoes - which tasted good as I recal, but the ants were a bit nippy!

[oddoneout]

Following up on earlier suggestsions, I wonder if it's a bad idea to put "gone off" fruit and veg from the fridge into a compost heap. Meat and cheese products are a no-no I believe - might attract mice, rats etc., and not decompose well.

Also, in previous attempts at breaking down organic matter using those green cone things, there were occasional infestations of maggots - which seemed undesirable to me - and as I recall I found some quite severe methods to deal with those.

Finally I noticed recently that we might have been about to have an infestation of ants in our house, which I appear to have dealt with (Nippon gel, and power in various locations), but I do wonder if some ants have decamped outside to the compost bin.
Are ants in compost a problem? They might be a nuisance to humans, but I'm not sure that they are otherwise "a bad thing". If they should be "dealt with", would it be OK to put ant powder on top of the heap?

We once tried - with very modest success - to grow potatoes in bags, but one hazard when furtling to extract the crop was that it seemed that a colony of ants had taken up residence in one of the bags. Didn't affect the potatoes - which tasted good as I recal, but the ants were a bit nippy!

I chuck any fruit and veg at any stage on my heap; you are highly unlikely to have sufficient quantity to adversely affect its workings, and if it isn't too close to the house any fruit or other fly eruptions won't be an issue - and may well be welcomed by wildlife.
Ants in compost heaps are not a problem although it sometimes indicates the heap is too dry - might need more green material and/or some water. Using ant-ant chemicals will knock out other creatures in the heap which are part of the breakdown process so not a good idea.
This (other search results said much the same) https://www.howbertandmays.ie/green%...reland%20facts ) https://www.howbertandmays.ie/green%...reland%20facts perhaps answers the green cone/fly issue, flies being the precursor of the maggots. Not pleasant but as part of the breakdown process not necessarily something to have to deal with as such - other than not lifting the lid for a while until the lifecycle has been gone through? I don't see how it is possible to completely prevent access by flies as even if the top isn't removed and there are no passengers on whatever is put in, there is still the contact with the soil as an entry point.

[gradus]

I chuck any fruit and veg at any stage on my heap; you are highly unlikely to have sufficient quantity to adversely affect its workings, and if it isn't too close to the house any fruit or other fly eruptions won't be an issue - and may well be welcomed by wildlife.
Ants in compost heaps are not a problem although it sometimes indicates the heap is too dry - might need more green material and/or some water. Using ant-ant chemicals will knock out other creatures in the heap which are part of the breakdown process so not a good idea.
This (other search results said much the same) https://www.howbertandmays.ie/green%...reland%20facts ) https://www.howbertandmays.ie/green%...reland%20facts perhaps answers the green cone/fly issue, flies being the precursor of the maggots. Not pleasant but as part of the breakdown process not necessarily something to have to deal with as such - other than not lifting the lid for a while until the lifecycle has been gone through? I don't see how it is possible to completely prevent access by flies as even if the top isn't removed and there are no passengers on whatever is put in, there is still the contact with the soil as an entry point.

Dave, we compost everything but segregate food and kitchen waste into daleks standing on paving stones to prevent rats from getting in. The daleks can pong a bit when the lids come off - not of course whilst in place -but eventually they settle down when I stop feeding them and the resultant compost is usually full of brandling worms and seems pretty good if wet-ish.