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Compost Bins
Having down-sized garden, I no longer need the 2 large compost
containes that I left behind. I'm wondering about one of these plastic conical bins, put it in at the top, shovel it out at the bottom. Do they really work well, or will I need 2 of them (I'm not thinking of the heated type). -- Roger T 700 ft up in Mid-Wales |
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Compost Bins
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#3
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Compost Bins
On 26/02/2017 20:35, Janet wrote:
I have 3 (only because our council gives them away) and have them stashed out of sight around the garden to dump weeds in. Compared with me real compost bins (4 ft cubes made with pallets) plastic bins don't ever heat up much and are very slow. You can forget "shovel it out the bottom"...doesn't work. But they are a no-labour system. Every so often I lift off the dalek from its mostly rotted contents, like taking the bucket off sandpies, and leave the compost in situ for birds to spread, move the dalek to new spot. I have two. You can't turn the compost. The only real way to do it is to lift it off, move the compost, put it back and refill. And as Janet says - forget the door. Andy |
#4
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Compost Bins
On 26 Feb 2017 19:52, Roger Tonkin wrote:
Having down-sized garden, I no longer need the 2 large compost containes that I left behind. I'm wondering about one of these plastic conical bins, put it in at the top, shovel it out at the bottom. Do they really work well, or will I need 2 of them (I'm not thinking of the heated type). -- Roger T 700 ft up in Mid-Wales Have two down on the allotment for years, never yet had anything out of them, it just seems to disappear. I now throw all waste into our normal open wooden compost bins at least I get some compost from those. -- Regards Bob Hobden |
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Compost Bins
On Sun, 26 Feb 2017 19:52:18 -0000, Roger Tonkin
wrote: I'm wondering about one of these plastic conical bins, put it in at the top, shovel it out at the bottom. I have four, and in a small garden they work well, if everything added is fairly small, I add a lot of torn up cardboard wine boxes, once the bin is full I turn everything out and put it back into another bin, which had its contents tuned and moved down the line, that way everything is tunes at least three times, before creating a bin of good stuff in about seven months, and over the year about 300 ltrs total. Two shredders, office one for all the paper, and garden one for all the twigs etc. I do keep a dustbin full of garden shredded materiel over the winter, to slowly add to the kitchen waste as lawn clipping are not available Cannot stress enough, brown corrugated cardboard is the magic addition |
#6
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Compost Bins
On Sun, 26 Feb 2017 20:35:00 -0000, Janet wrote:
I'm wondering about one of these plastic conical bins, put it in at the top, shovel it out at the bottom. Do they really work well, or will I need 2 of them (I'm not thinking of the heated type). I have 3 (only because our council gives them away) and have them stashed out of sight around the garden to dump weeds in. Compared with me real compost bins (4 ft cubes made with pallets) plastic bins don't ever heat up much and are very slow. You can forget "shovel it out the bottom"...doesn't work. But they are a no-labour system. Every so often I lift off the dalek from its mostly rotted contents, Very similar to what I was going to type, With mine they stay fairly warm because they are very sheltered and I pile other vegetation and grass clippings around them. Each one also has a section of perforated land drain pipe running from top to bottom to assist with aeration as the contents can get compacted . I have also placed them on some iron drainage grids I obtained , these allow worms etc to colonise but discourage rats who before doing that burrowed under in into them. As others have said shovelling out can be difficult , get the odd bucketfull but it less frustating to tip one over completley then sort the material that has turned into compost and then shovel what hasn't back in . Our also came from the council for free , I have noticed there are usually some used ones at our local dump/recycling center where the operators sell them off for a couple of quid. G.Harman |
#8
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Compost Bins
In article ,
wrote: On Sun, 26 Feb 2017 20:35:00 -0000, Janet wrote: I'm wondering about one of these plastic conical bins, put it in at the top, shovel it out at the bottom. Do they really work well, or will I need 2 of them (I'm not thinking of the heated type). I have 3 (only because our council gives them away) and have them stashed out of sight around the garden to dump weeds in. Compared with me real compost bins (4 ft cubes made with pallets) plastic bins don't ever heat up much and are very slow. You can forget "shovel it out the bottom"...doesn't work. But they are a no-labour system. Every so often I lift off the dalek from its mostly rotted contents, Very similar to what I was going to type, And ditto. I am a lifelong compost-maker (read: experimenter), and shunned these plastic things for years. Then for space reasons I tried one: amazing. For several years now I've had three: each year I empty one, invert the contents of the next one, ditto for the next, and the resulting empty bin gets the current years material. To empty: lift off the plastic shell. To fork compost, everyone needs a muck fork, available at your local farmers' supplier, or, e.g. https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Gardening...rong-48-Inch-H andle/B002VA4CCO - a Top-Ten Tool! John |
#9
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Compost Bins
Many thanks for the all responses. Having used a 2 year cycle
before with proper open compost heaps, I had not thought of doing the same with these bins - must be the age Not sure if I'll have room for 2 (or 3) I'll have to see when the work has finished. -- Roger T 700 ft up in Mid-Wales |
#10
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Compost Bins
On 26/02/2017 19:52, Roger Tonkin wrote:
Having down-sized garden, I no longer need the 2 large compost containes that I left behind. I'm wondering about one of these plastic conical bins, put it in at the top, shovel it out at the bottom. Do they really work well, or will I need 2 of them (I'm not thinking of the heated type). I have a couple which I top up on a regular basis. They don't make compost particularly fast except in the hot summer weather. I put mine on bare soil and get lots of beneficial worms in the top layers of the rotting material. Check https://getcomposting.com/ your council may subsidise the cost -- mailto: news {at} admac {dot] myzen {dot} co {dot} uk |
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Compost Bins
On Sunday, 26 February 2017 19:52:02 UTC, Roger Tonkin wrote:
Having down-sized garden, I no longer need the 2 large compost containes that I left behind. I'm wondering about one of these plastic conical bins, put it in at the top, shovel it out at the bottom. Do they really work well, or will I need 2 of them (I'm not thinking of the heated type). -- Roger T 700 ft up in Mid-Wales Roger, If you are still watching this thread may I say that we have used four compost bins for about twenty years now. We fill one and then move the material along to the next bin and so on until it reaches the fourth bin, usually after a year or so. From the final bin it then goes into our bigger pallet composters. WE don't use the stuff from the fourth bin because it is always a bit coarse at that stage. A final period in the bigger open composters breaks it down to a better, more usable mulch. That said, we don't use accelerators at all and I think that the use of such things might speed up the process considerably. Like you used to have, we have plenty of room to let things sit for as long as it takes. |
#12
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#13
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