"Stuart Naylor" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 09 Apr 2007 09:19:11 GMT, "0tterbot" wrote:

"Jack" wrote in message
. au...
When its smoking, its just right according to the taliban!

Add some shovel fulls of ordinary garden dirt, and the bacteria in dirt
will help a bit, also add some blood and bone.
If you dont add dirt the system wont work normally.

it's worth pointing out that tumbling compost isn't really "normal" :-)
for
ordinary compost in a bin, you should have it on the ground directly & i
know some people like to put a layer of soil in their recipe (although
others don't). if it's in a pile on the ground, it will eventually break
down into nice compost come what may & no matter how long it might take,
yet
i suspect that if a tumbling composter was just walked away from, you
might
not get that, because it's seperated from the normal bugs & usual rotting
environment.

in tumbled compost, you won't have any worms, slaters, & other creatures
that you normally would. it's a different & rather more artifical system.

I tend to agree about tumbled compost though mainly from the
perspective that I don't need compost that fast.

Also there's
usually some worm castings in the dirt, which all goes to help.
Let us know how you get it right!
PS a lot of compact stuff is not a good idea.

I have two compost bins. The first being a typical Gedeys bin in full
sun which I fill and then remove the bin to another location.
The second bin is kept moist and shaded and I've added compost worms
and it is a hive of activity. I carefully feed the worms and keep new
compost material moist while at the same time I can remove old
material for pots or my garden by opening doors at the bottom.

if i'd had one with a bottom door i may never have discovered the joys (and
travails ;-) of a tumbler!!

my two ground bins are the cheap, basic kind. fine to just let it rot at
it's own speed, but otherwise extremely difficult to use unless you have so
many of them you can just leave them to it for a year.

your wormy bin sounds very interesting. in the worm book i read (thread up
above somewhere) the author visited a poultry-processing plant and worm farm
in india. they used giant worm-beds to get rid of the heads, feet & feathers
of the chickens. it took (wait for it) 18 days from go to woe, beaks & all.
wow!
kylie