Duncan wrote:
"Ian B" wrote in message
...
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,


Ian

I've got two gardens and two very different compost bins. My city
garden is about the size of yours, no lawn, and compost made from
mostly kitchen stuff, plus weeds and the leafier bits of anything I
cut back. I also chuck seaweed in when I can be bothered to cart a
sackful up off the beach (only 100 yards, but people wonder what you
are up to). The mix is a bit wet, sluggy and niffy but packed with
worms, and seems to benefit from a good stir.

I've got a feeling mine might go a bit whiffy, we'll have to see...

The other compost bin is on a grassy caravan plot where I have
gardening obligations - mostly rough grass and hedging. The grass
clippings DO eventually turn into clumps of crumbly stuff looking a
bit like old manure. Big heaps of fresh grass clippings get really
hot.

I suppose in an ideal world I'd have all these things in one
composter, but they both seem to produce something worth putting back
into the soil.

Okay thanks. My original post was because all the instructions make it seem
like a rather precise art. Maybe I can relax a bit?


Ian