small compost bin ( A newbie)

[Riz]

The plastic container came from the local council, i am supposed to put glass bottles inside..

so i thought ill use it as a small compost bin..

i gathered up all the small branches and cut them in small pieces and then i collected some leaves around the garden along with grass clippings, some salad i ate last night went inside aswell.

[Riz]

from what i have been reading is that a well aired compost bin will never smell..

i had a piece of carpet that i didn't use, so i cut it with a Stanley blade and am using it as a lid. i will turn the organic matter once a week and will add more stuff to it,, maybe some paper some cardboard ( pizza boxes cut really small)

[Riz]

its my first time doing it ( so go easy on me) :)

ill let you know how i get on.. maybe in 5 months i will have compost :)

[Tania]

The small branches are smaller than 1 cm ?? I begun to pick up the small weeds and i think i could make a compost bin like yours :o

[~Obsidian~]

its my first time doing it ( so go easy on me)

ill let you know how i get on.. maybe in 5 months i will have compost :)
Riz you're supposed to use those bins to recycle :D

The carpet will make a great lid, however it'll probably start to decompose along with the rest of it so it won't last long. I think the best you can do is get a piece of wood to cover it.
The small branches are smaller than 1 cm ?? I begun to pick up the small weeds and i think i could make a compost bin like yours :o

I'm not sure about composting weeds, because they tend to grow in the compost heap :confused: anybody else?

[Tania]

I will not use them in compost. But really i don't know what to do with weeds

[~Obsidian~]

What I do with my weeds is......

1. Throw them in the normal bin (but I don't like doing this).

2. Throw them in the garden waste recycling bin we have (they collect garden clippings/leaves/branches etc. once a week).

3. Leave them in their own pile and sooner or later they compose, I'll then chuck themem back in the soil without worrying about whether they'll root or not.

[tahir_phoenix]

I will not use them in compost. But really i don't know what to do with weeds

U could try Obsidian's ideas but I saw a cooking show on tv the other day and they had a good use for weeds :eek:

Not sure if my stomach could take it though :p

http://www.consciouschoice.com/2006/04/foodlead0604.html

[Tania]

They are too small to be eat :p so i will use Obsidian idea about composting in a separate pile.

[~Obsidian~]

U could try Obsidian's ideas but I saw a cooking show on tv the other day and they had a good use for weeds :eek:

Not sure if my stomach could take it though :p

http://www.consciouschoice.com/2006/04/foodlead0604.html

SubhanAllah that reminds me, my friend was doing a pharmaceutical related course (or was it biomed? AllahuAlam!) and she was telling me about the health benefits of ordinary garden weeds - they were amazing!

[Riz]

Riz you're supposed to use those bins to recycle :D


I am using the container to recycle, kitchen and garden waste into compost :)


:GreenThumbs::GreenThumbs:

most people have a plastic container laying around the house or in the shed,, we should all try it this season, its better than paying rip-off prices for compost from the store :0

[Kirsten]

My compost bin at home is just open and uncovered. As long as I turn it about once a day, it doesn't smell at all. That does require some time and effort when it gets big though...

The compost bin I have at college in my room (shhh don't tell my roommate, she doesn't know) is under my bed and basically just a pot of dirt (about 0.25 meters tall and a diameter of maybe about 10 cm? I tried to convert to meters for you UK people, hopefully that's right :p ) and started off about half-full with plain gardening soil. I just went ahead and shredded my vegetable scraps as best as I could and buried them in there along with some shredded paper (notes from past classes I hated, for example :p ) It's never smelled at all and the roommate (who lives about 10 feet away) has no clue that it exists. I do have to be careful when I turn it that everything gets reburied enough so it doesn't attract flies or something, but so far it's worked out surprisingly well. I do miss my BIG bin of compost back at home, that would be awfully hard to hide in my room here... ;)

And Riz I am 100% with you on the price of compost (and composters for that matter!) Compost isn't hard to make at all, and I can't imagine spending $150 for one of those fancy composters when I can just use any old random plastic tub!

[Tania]

I want to put in a old barrel some scrap wood and i will add the waste from the kitchen. My questions would be:
1. Can i add the whole time the vegetable scraps from the kitchen or only in the beginning?
2. The barrel will be covered with a wooden lid (which will allow the water to enter in the barrel when will rain). Can i leave the barrel outside in the garden or should i put him in a covered place?

[Riz]

I want to put in a old barrel some scrap wood and i will add the waste from the kitchen. My questions would be:
1. Can i add the whole time the vegetable scraps from the kitchen or only in the beginning?
2. The barrel will be covered with a wooden lid (which will allow the water to enter in the barrel when will rain). Can i leave the barrel outside in the garden or should i put him in a covered place?

you can add veggie scraps and stuff from the kitchen.. just make sure you have the ability to turn the stuff over to let air in it.. and you have to keep it moist but not wet as it will go really mouldy and smell..

short video. so many vids on youtube about compost please check them out...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oUejMTI34U

[Tania]

Thank you. I have now a better idea about how its made the compost

[~Obsidian~]

I'd just leave it outdoors Tania, my heap is in the garden at the back and its doing fine!

Kirsten - blimey you're brave!! An indoor bin :eek:

[Riz]

an update on my small compost bin..

ive been adding things slowly to the container, kitchen scraps, twigs, grass, salad, i have been turning it over once a week :)

[Tania]

Digging in the garden i found pieces of wood (from last year) so soft that i was able to crumble in the hand. I think that wood decay faster in the ground, so i will burry them. :)

[farah]

How has the composting come along? This is something I've always wanted to do but to get the ph right or something don't you have to be quite careful of the mixture of stuff that can go in...? Some of the bins that you can buy are very expensive but have clever designs like the tumbler sort that you can rotate to mix everything.

Recipe for homemade compost:
http://www.wcswmd.org/pdfs/Composting%20Flyer.pdf

[Riz]

hi farah..

composting is quite straight forward, and its coming along real well, I put old salad in there along with potato scraps along with twigs, leaves etc,, and i turn it over once a week, i only add bits at a time so the bacteria and enzymes have time to degrade everything..

yeah the tumblers are great but expensive huh..

thanks for the link

ps.. just check out some youtube vids, lots on there..

don't you think the prices of soil and compost are just ridiculously high !?. even if you can make 50 litres of compost at home from your garden waste per season, it will be a great satisfying feeling :)

[Psypomp]

I've read that you're supposed to alternate nitrogen (like green plants) and carbon (branches, ash) when composting.

I tried this for a while, but we had a long bout of rain and the bucket I was using for compost was full of water, so the mixture was useless. Right now, there's just a little spot where I throw away all our organic waste.

[farah]

Hmm that's what concerned me as well but its seems its just getting the ratio right 3-1 of brown material to green material according to the pdf. The youtube videos really good for an explanation on starting up and if you can do it for virtually no money then why would you even want to go and buy compost for most general gardening. I would like to see how the compost looks when all the leaves and clippings have turned in to mulch though. Someone made an interesting point in the comments of not adding shredded paper as it contains chemicals, it shouldn't have too much of an affect though...?

[Riz]

^ farah,

sometimes one can get caught up in reading way too much and get caught up in the number crunching....

here is a pic of mine so far...

[farah]

Very true, thank you for the picture i'm curious to see if the end result looks like the dark brown, shop bought stuff. :)

[Riz]

an update on the compost bin..

i have been putting in old salad that i had left over, potato peels etc...

[farah]

Mine smells realllly bad, its in a bin about 50-60cms high, is that normal?? I've used the rain water collected at the bottom for a new mango seedling that I planted recently thought maybe it would have more nutrients than tap-water...

[Riz]

^ you need to balance the greens [grass clippings, weeds, foliage, food scrapings and peelings] with browns [cardboard, newspapers, other compostable papers based products, lots of which come in the junk mail] and keep turning it once in a while :)

[Nife180]

The stink maybe from an inbalance of greens and browns or not turning the pile anarobic decomposition produces hydrogen sulfide (also known as rotten egg gas :D) as one of the gases which makes it stink.

I currently have a bin for all the organic scraps from the kitchen, I'm worried wither I should use eggshells, I heard of salmonella being present in the shells. anyone want to shed some light?

[Riz]

lots of immature apples are falling from the tree, so today i collected them all and cut them in pieces and put them in my compost bin :)

put some old carpet on top to keep the heat in and also to stop the fruit fly s` from flying into the compost bin... i might even start another compost bin later on...............

[Riz]

i have been adding all green kitchen waste too, layering it up nicely with adding branches, grass clippings, lots of paper cut up really small and turning the whole compost over once a week..

http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa300/sajid_012/IMGP1849.jpg

[edibles]

I've got plenty of fresh soil/compost from under the loquat tree( self cleaning, inner leaves leaves) mix in some pruned stuff and pow fresh compost

Riz will you have to check the soil after i.e nutrients, ph

[Riz]

Riz will you have to check the soil after i.e nutrients, ph

oh i will..

i have an electronic PH tester :)

[Kirsten]

Before I left for South America I filled up my compost bin to the brim with fresh grass clippings (about the size of yours, Riz) and then today I looked in there and there's only about 5 cm worth of stuff!!

I asked my mom if she'd used a lot of it while I was gone, but she said that no, it just shrunk to near nothingness...!!

[dhakiyya]

The stink maybe from an inbalance of greens and browns or not turning the pile anarobic decomposition produces hydrogen sulfide (also known as rotten egg gas :D) as one of the gases which makes it stink.

I currently have a bin for all the organic scraps from the kitchen, I'm worried wither I should use eggshells, I heard of salmonella being present in the shells. anyone want to shed some light?

the salmonella won't survive in the compost heap, too much competition from other kinds of bacteria more suited to it. salmonella lives in the guts of chickens and can also live for a short time in human guts (with nasty consequences!!), it can live in food too as we all know, but by the time it gets into a compost heap there are tonnes of bacteria that are specialised at breaking down organic waste that it just would not compete as it's adapted to live in chickens gut, not rotting vegetables.

if you want to be extra extra sure, you can always dry out the eggshells before putting them in your compost, the drying process would kill any bacteria on the eggshells.

you shouldn't put old meat, bones, fish and stuff like that in compost heaps, because they will attract vermin such as rats. My parents have a green cone ( most local councils give them away free to encourage recycling ) and you can put anything biodegradable in this, however smelly, because it keeps the smells in and rats, foxes and anything else that might want to eat old meat can't get inside. They make good compost too. My parents don't put any food waste into the regular bins it all goes on the compost or in the green cone.

Here's a pic of my parents' compost heap... it doesn't usually have an upturned wheelbarrow stuck in it btw, I just took that pic cause I thought it was funny, with the wheelbarrow and all the apples (they had been collected from under the apple tree, and were presumably supposed to go in the compost but that didn't happen for some reason lol)

[Riz]

^ thats a fair size compost bin that your mum has :)

i dont put meat or bones in the bin either because of the animals as you mentioned... if you air the compost bin it shouldn't really smell atall..

[Riz]

found this nice website, which shows you what kind of waste you can compost

http://www.compostthis.co.uk/

[Riz]

here is a pic of the latest developments in the compost bin,, looking good :)

[Riz]

latest pic...

i turned the compost over today and it really stunk.. still its going ok :)

[Tania]

I think soon will be turned to soil. :)

[abu thaabit]

compost isnt supposed to stink :( maybe add some dry leaf litter to balance it.

[Riz]

^ true..

lots of water got into the plastic crate... its been raining a lot the last few days along with gale force winds..

[abu thaabit]

drill a hole in the bottom ;)

[Riz]

i threw some mouldy garlic bulbs into the compost heap last year,, and guess what they have germinated in the heap. LOL ....

[~Obsidian~]

:D are you gonna evict them? Rehouse them?

[Kirsten]

Here is a picture of some compost I made recently... you can see it's mostly all broken down into dirt. It took me about a month and consisted originally of orange peels, cabbage leaves, banana peels, apple cores, kale stems, old receipts and old papers for browns etc... I am pretty happy with how it turned out and just put a thin layer of it over my eggplants and jade plant :)

http://i50.tinypic.com/2j2ji2p.jpg

I have to make small batches because my "composter" is indoor and homemade and tiny, but it works pretty well. I have a second batch cooking right now :)

[Riz]

^ black gold :)

[~Obsidian~]

Gowjess, Kirst!! If I could get results like that in a month, I wouldn't waste me money buying any.

[Kirsten]

Two things I've found that really speed mine up are:

1) Cut them into little pieces - like really, as little as you can
2) Stick the pieces in a bag and chuck them in the freezer

The freezing helps the water expand as it turns into ice and bursts the plant cells, so it breaks down faster.

I keep a plastic bag in the freezer for this purpose; when it's full of shredded vegetable matter, I'll take it out, break it up into chunks with my fingers, toss in enough dirt and shredded paper to cover everything, and pile it into an orange juice carton w/ holes cut into the side. It actually does get hot by itself, despite it's tiny size! I turn it and add new paper probably every couple of days. And in a month I have lovely black gold, as Riz called it :D

I do have to be careful to keep a lot of shredded paper in there, though, or it starts to smell. Well, it's a good way to make sure nobody ever reads those sensitive documents you need destroyed :)

[farah]

clever idea, putting it in the fridge!

[Riz]

my small compost bin is really coming along slowly.. well pleased with it. Although i need to collect more garden waste for another season before i can use some of it.. it shrinks to nothingness when it drys out......

[Riz]

i made compost people LOL :cheerleader:

still adding to it since last season..

*kitchen waste
*newspapers
*cardboard
*branches/leaves

http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa300/sajid_012/DSC02355.jpg

[Riz]

still adding to it though... i am so glad it turned out brilliant, In the future i will make a bigger compost heap and i wont need to spend too much money to buy the compost :)

http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa300/sajid_012/DSC02357.jpg

[noora]

good

thank you

[Riz]

compost bin is looking good, will use some of it for containers later on after spring.. :D

[Foreveryoung]

Now that's really something very interesting but does it not smell and attract insects and vermin , especially after getting moist if it rains ?

[Riz]

Now that's really something very interesting but does it not smell and attract insects and vermin , especially after getting moist if it rains ?


if you add meat and bones to it then YES, probably your cat :) i stick to adding kitchen waste garden waste like twigs leaf etc.. and newspapers, the heat in Pakistan will help break everything down a lot quicker, if you "air" the compost pile, meaning turn it over let air inside it it will never smell. You can have usable compost withing 3 months, If yu have a huge container like a bin you can add stuff to it or just pile it up in the corner of the garden and keep adding kitchen waste to it and keep turning it over once every 2 weeks and it will be fine.

[noora]

thank you RIZ


http://www.youtube.com/user/PAllenSmith#p/u/36/XZyox5yLiMU

[Riz]

thanks noora thats a helpful vid.

[Riz]

i used all my compost for the potatoe grow and now i am starting again with twigs grass clippings kitchen waste etc....

http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa300/sajid_012/Photo0512.jpg