adm wrote:
On 2008-05-09 15:53:21 +0100, "Ian B" said:

I hope this is an appropriate ng, if not apologies and could
somebody point me to an appopriate one?

I've moved in to a new flat recently with a garden but frankly don't
know much about gardening at all really. Many of my family have
gardens, but the only time I've myself previously had one was for a
couple of years, and the ex knew all about it so she did the
intelligent stuff and I just did the heavy work as instructed,
usually involving a spade and a bad back IIRC.

The garden isn't in bad shape but had got rather weedy as the
previous resident had died and thus neglected his gardening duties.
Having been concentrating on decorating and moving and stuff, I'd
sort of left nature alone a bit in the garden but was finally
spurred into action as a phalanx of fierce looking couch grass was
marching down the garden and I began to fear that one night it would
march into the house and strangle me in an unnervingly sticky way.
So I started weeding and ended up with lots of weeds. I initially
bagged them up to go to the tip, but I don't drive so have to rely
on the kindness of others, and press-ganging family members into
transporting bags of rotten weeds can get tiresome. Also I thought
it makes more sense to use my waste myself rather than needlessly(?)
take it somewhere else, so I decided to get with the groove and
become a composter.

So I've bought a compost bin, which is an impressive square
self-assembly black plastic thing with doors in the sides and a lid,
and started it off, and looked on the internets for advice; but
although there is an elegant sufficiency of advice available it's a
bit confusing for a berk like me. I'm particularly concerned about
this brown/green ratio and what counts as brown. Some sites say the
brown/green ratio should be about equal. Others seem to say that the
required ratio is 30:1, which doesn't sound right as in my bin that
would be basically filling it with twigs then putting about a
quarter of a lettuce in the middle. I'm also not sure what counts as
brown. Some sites say, "leaves", while others tell me to put my
leaves in plastic bags with holes poked in and compost them
seperately. Also, a lot of sites say not to put weeds in it, but if
that's the case it kind of destroys the point as I'd be hefting big
bags of weeds off to the tip and my impressive bin would have 3 tea
bags and a carrot top in it. Also, there's no lawn so I can't put
lawn clippings in it either, which might be a good thing as
apparently too many of them turn it to green slime.

I constructed my bin yesterday evening and put it in a corner of the
garden which is a bit shady, which is apparently wrong also, but
that's the only reasonable place it can go. I started off with a
layer of brown leaves that happened to be conveniently lying around,
which are mostly berberis from the forbidding anti-miscreant hedge
at the bottom of the garden. I moistenened them, then flung in some
of my weeds, which are apparently all things that aren't supposed to
go in for fear they'll live a zombie existence in the bin; couch
grass, dandelion, some creeping thing that sort of tangles around
everything, a few nettles including some from the untended thicket
that borders my garden since I read they're very nitrogenous and
quite a lot of what I thought were weeds but my sister thinks are
poppies, so I've stopped pulling any more of them up; also some bits
of cardboard, a few twigs which various sites say shouldn't go in
either because they take years to break down, and several tea bags.
And some more brown leaves and so on, then mixed it around a bit.
This latter seemed to be against the principle of layering, but I
don't quite understand that either as the advice seems to be to make
layers, then keep mixing it all up, so I don't quite see the point
of the layering; is this two different approaches or am I missing
something?

Does all this sound right? I've got more green in there than brown,
if green is weeds and brown is leaves, but I haven't got any more
brown to offer, unlike the government, sadly, but like them I've
still got more weeds to go. Since the garden is overlooked by huge
lime trees that my neighbour tells me will cover us later in an deep
autumnal carpet (he shifted 30 bags of leaves from his garden last
year) I'll presumably have heaps of brown then but I can't do much
about that now. My bin is about 3 foot square and currently filled
something approaching 3 foot deep.

Other than while I was asleep I've been looking in the bin far more
often than I need to but nothing much seems to be happening yet,
though at least it hasn't produced any nasty smells so far. Perhaps
my bin is faulty

I'm really looking for some people who are composting in small
gardens (mine is about 27 foot square in the old money); what they
put in their bins in what order and amounts and so on. Or am I on a
hiding to nowhere and should I just take the whole lot to the tip?

I'd also like some beginners' advice on how to tell weeds from real
plants before I fling a potentially beautiful summer display in my
disfunctional bin. Is there an online poppy foliage indentifier
site? Also what to do with heaps of twigs and small branches from
the trees. Tip?

Also I have several peonies which are quite big (about 3 foot round
and something over 2 foot high) which are budding like mad; do I
need to do anything special for them? I have no idea what variety
they are, sadly.

Many thanks for any replies,

Sheesh.

Relax Ian.

Just chuck everything in and don't look at it until next year. Give it
a stir if you can be bothered, but if you can't......don't worry about
it. It's compost - it's not going to miraculously change to loam
overnight.

Well, I'm just trying to get it right you know...


Ian