The message .com
from "fingers" contains these words:
Jaques d'Alltrades wrote:
The message .com
from "fingers" contains these words:

/snip/

.. Is this a good plan for the compost bin? Do the holes need to be
bigger?

Yes, the holes need to be bigger. Your best bet would be to get some
rigid plastic net - usually used for climbers, etc, and which has quite
large spaces - and roll it into a cylinfer and clip/tie/weld it up. To
ensure the outside of the composting matter doesn't dry too much to keep
up with the middle, you could wrap some plastic sheet round the bottom
foot or so. You can rest it on concrete blocks or a sheet of
something-or other. You could keep it in a trough (the bottom of a
plastic bin, perhaps), but if you cover the apparatus, there should be
little if any gunge to collect.

Jaques,
The reason I want to use a butt is that the two will match and will
look more pleasant for the neighbours that overlook my tiny garden.

Cut the middle out of a bin then, and use the top bit as a lid and get
some matching (as near as possible) plastic 'chain-link' fence mesh and
tuck it inside the base. It'll match - more or less.

What you're proposing is neither a wormery nor a composter.

/snip/

.. Is it a good plan to do this or do you recomend always buying new
potting compost?

Buy? What does this word mean?

I have a tiny garden that is covered mostly in concrete so no
possibility to just grab some soil from somewhere. I asked because I
was wondering about disease in such a closed small system.

The heat generated within a composter will take care of any diseases you
are likely to encounter.

.. The water butt comes with a rain diverter kit. How does this work?
From the pics it looks like you saw the downpipe and insert the
diverter and it diverts the rain through a hosepipe into the butt.
.. What happens if there is a torrential downpour as the hosepipe won't
cope with all the water?
.. How does it prevent the butt from overflowing?
.. Is there a maximum length for the diverter hosepipe?

Inquire at your local fire station - you can often prise a few really
heavy-gauge plastic barrels out of them. They get the additive for
making foam in them. If you cut the tops off with a panel saw, you can
turn them over and they locate perfectly in the channel moulded in so
the barrels stack.

Are these the bright blue ones? By the time I have bought paint and the
fittings I might as well get the cheap water butt from the water
authority.

Mine are bright blue, yes. They add a touch of colour innit.

You can run your downpipe straight into the butt(s), which you can
connect with a pipe, and have an overflow at the far end.

The downpipe is in a tight corner with no place to put the butt below
it so it will mean moving the downpipe to where I want to place the
butt or doing some plumbing.

Ah, life is not a bowl of cherries...

Some people have the butts staggered so that the top one overflows into
the next, and so-on, others connect them with pipe at the bottom. When i
get mine set up properly I intend having a float-operated pump into an
elevated 'orange-juice bottle' - the water of which will be filtered and
used domestically for bath, toilet flushing etc.

See:

http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/ad/waterworks.html

Thanks in advance for you answers. I hope there aren't too many
questions :-)

Hope there aren't too many more, now...

Nope. Thanks for the help.

Think nothing of it - that's urg for you.

--
Rusty
horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co full-stop uk
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/