Thanks all, invaluable information.hope you get rain soon. Mike
"Martin Brown" wrote in message
...
On 18/07/2010 06:52, Mike wrote:
Hi, I'm looking for some bulk material for a compost heap at work.
We have plenty of grass clippings and some prunings from the garden, but

You are doing something wrong if you don't get a hot hot heap from plenty
of grass clippings and prunings. My heap goes to 70C about three days
after adding 3m^3 of stuff to it and it doesn't really matter much whether
it is grass or hedge clipping. I have had it smouldering internally once
or twice.

If you have an excess of grass clippings you could try adding old shredded
newspaper and cardboard to avoid to much nitrogen.

the compost lacks body as we dont really have an option of leaf
collection. I wondered wether to contact local farmers for broken bales

Leavers tend to be bad news in a compost heap. Many trees produce potent
fungal inhibitors in their leaves and they rot down much more slowly.
Although leaf mould is really good it takes much longer than composting
other garden waste. Mine is mostly beech and oak leaves.

of hay/stray to top up compost , does this sound like a good idea? any
suggestions for out sourcing materials would be welcome, we can collect.
Andover area Hampshire. Mike

You should not need to bother, but you might need to pay more attention to
making sure the water content is right and/or seed it once or twice with
something like Garotta as a starter culture. It should smell a bit odd
after two or three days - not unpleasant but sort of musty.

Small heaps are tricky to make work, but once you are on a decent size
there is no real problem in getting it so hot that things cook down.

Regards,
Martin Brown