Jaques d'Alltrades wrote:
Visit your local greengrocer, who is often only too pleased to give you
lots of stuff to take away. Add cardboard, newsprint, hedge clippings
(if any), and even take in stuff from gardenproud neighbours who must
have a 'clinicly clean and tidy' garden.

Egg boxes, comfrey, weeds, leaves ... When I feel my compost needs a
bit more I collect from my allotment's skip. It's crazy the amount of
stuff people just throw away.

I'm gonna experiment this year with an open compost, just a pile of
weed on the lotty and I'll grow nasturtium on it. I saw a pile like
this once and it was so pretty. I just hope it won't harden too much.
Anyone did this?

"La puce" wrote in message
oups.com...

Jaques d'Alltrades wrote:
Visit your local greengrocer, who is often only too pleased to give you
lots of stuff to take away. Add cardboard, newsprint, hedge clippings
(if any), and even take in stuff from gardenproud neighbours who must
have a 'clinicly clean and tidy' garden.

Egg boxes, comfrey, weeds, leaves ... When I feel my compost needs a
bit more I collect from my allotment's skip. It's crazy the amount of
stuff people just throw away.

I'm gonna experiment this year with an open compost, just a pile of
weed on the lotty and I'll grow nasturtium on it. I saw a pile like
this once and it was so pretty. I just hope it won't harden too much.
Anyone did this?

Make a 'container' by knocking a few stakes in the ground and surrounding it
with chicken wire.
Make a couple and rotate the compost
Takes a bit longer than regular wooden or plastic containers, but does work
Jenny

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

Visit your local greengrocer, who is often only too pleased to give you
lots of stuff to take away. Add cardboard, newsprint, hedge clippings
(if any), and even take in stuff from gardenproud neighbours who must
have a 'clinicly clean and tidy' garden.

Egg boxes, comfrey, weeds, leaves ... When I feel my compost needs a
bit more I collect from my allotment's skip. It's crazy the amount of
stuff people just throw away.

I'm gonna experiment this year with an open compost, just a pile of
weed on the lotty and I'll grow nasturtium on it. I saw a pile like
this once and it was so pretty. I just hope it won't harden too much.
Anyone did this?

Not the nasturtium treatment, but I have a not-so-small steaming
hillock, but (Ref. your previous post) not having any boys to do it for
me, I have to drink a lot of tea.

Next spring I shall either plant a pumpkin on it, or if it is
sufficiently usable, add it somewhere where it will do some good.

I have plans for the bottom of the garden (Fairy Nuff?) which include
the removal of the hedge and its replacement with fruiting things, the
planting of a Charles Ross, (and possibly, in defiance of some opinion
here, a Bramley...) and the construction of a garage workshop.

The rockery, a heap of spoil from the footings of the ablutions block
added by the previous owner and dotted with some sort of pumice-like
chunks of some sort of slag, and placed there to disguise the concrete
top of the septic tank - er - where was I? Oh yes, the rockery will be
removed and a greenhouse is planned for the vacated space.

How did I get here from an open compost heap?

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

JennyC wrote:
I'm gonna experiment this year with an open compost, just a pile of
weed on the lotty and I'll grow nasturtium on it. I saw a pile like
this once and it was so pretty. I just hope it won't harden too much.
Anyone did this?

Make a 'container' by knocking a few stakes in the ground and surrounding it
with chicken wire.
Make a couple and rotate the compost
Takes a bit longer than regular wooden or plastic containers, but does work

Thanx. Won't rotate too long because of the nasturnium !

Jaques d'Alltrades wrote:

Not the nasturtium treatment, but I have a not-so-small steaming
hillock, but (Ref. your previous post) not having any boys to do it for
me, I have to drink a lot of tea.
Next spring I shall either plant a pumpkin on it, or if it is
sufficiently usable, add it somewhere where it will do some good.

A pumpkin could look really great - magic even. Perhaps I'll do that
too.

(snip long list of things to do)

How did I get here from an open compost heap?

I don't know but don't worry, you're amongst friends here ;o)

Which part of planet earth do you live in?

The message .com
from "La puce" contains these words:

How did I get here from an open compost heap?

I don't know but don't worry, you're amongst friends here ;o)

Which part of planet earth do you live in?

Norfolk. Where's'you?

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

"Jaques d'Alltrades" wrote in message
k...
The message .com
from "La puce" contains these words:
Jaques d'Alltrades wrote:

Visit your local greengrocer, who is often only too pleased to give you
lots of stuff to take away. Add cardboard, newsprint, hedge clippings
(if any), and even take in stuff from gardenproud neighbours who must
have a 'clinicly clean and tidy' garden.

Egg boxes, comfrey, weeds, leaves ... When I feel my compost needs a
bit more I collect from my allotment's skip. It's crazy the amount of
stuff people just throw away.

I'm gonna experiment this year with an open compost, just a pile of
weed on the lotty and I'll grow nasturtium on it. I saw a pile like
this once and it was so pretty. I just hope it won't harden too much.
Anyone did this?

Not the nasturtium treatment, but I have a not-so-small steaming
hillock, but (Ref. your previous post) not having any boys to do it for
me, I have to drink a lot of tea.

Next spring I shall either plant a pumpkin on it, or if it is
sufficiently usable, add it somewhere where it will do some good.

I have plans for the bottom of the garden (Fairy Nuff?) which include
the removal of the hedge and its replacement with fruiting things, the
planting of a Charles Ross, (and possibly, in defiance of some opinion
here, a Bramley...) and the construction of a garage workshop.

The rockery, a heap of spoil from the footings of the ablutions block
added by the previous owner and dotted with some sort of pumice-like
chunks of some sort of slag, and placed there to disguise the concrete
top of the septic tank - er - where was I? Oh yes, the rockery will be
removed and a greenhouse is planned for the vacated space.

How did I get here from an open compost heap?
Rusty

errrrrr via the shed ?
Jenny :~)

Sorry another late reply from me. Rats do invade compost heaps if you put
cooked scraps on them both in town and country, We had a rat in our heap in
rural Cheshire-it had dug a beautifully cylindrical hole under the garden
fence to get to cooked kitchen scraps. Our cat dealt with subsequent
intruders.
The information on cooked food came from a farmer friend who has to control
rat populations as part of his job.
We now have a sealed wormery for kitchen scraps.
Regards
David Taylor

"La puce" wrote in message
ups.com...

gentlegreen wrote:
Yep - definitely a rat - had to bash his brains out with a hammer - but
as I
say it went into my red hot compost bin so was quickly dealt with by
mother
nature.

faint

As to the meat thing, I was vegan for 20 years but the past 2 I've been
experimenting with fish and I always make a point of gutting them
myselves
so I can add them to my compost. Since I have a security camera and PIR
lamp
I would know if there was any live rat activity.

Ha! Fish yes! And blood and bones are good too - it's just the idea of
everyone putting the rest of their sunday roast on the compost bin.
Somehow it sounds really wrong. Just imagine those zillions of
gardeners with huge piles of meat rotting away. Honestly ...

Zillions of gardeners CAN be wrong ;-)

It's a life time learning process. I've heard )

Excellent link btw. I never bother touching my compost. I just ask my
boys to pee in it when they have a moment.

In article , david taylor
writes

We now have a sealed wormery for kitchen scraps.

So have I but it is used more like an off the ground compost bin as the
worms don't seem to do much,, in fact I've bought two lots as I never
saw any worms after a while in the first batch, though some were dead in
the yukky stuff that collect in the bottom. Where do they go?
Think I might have to buy yet more worms to get the stuff broken down
quicker.

janet
--
Janet Tweedy
Dalmatian Telegraph
http://www.lancedal.demon.co.uk

Jaques d'Alltrades wrote:
How did I get here from an open compost heap?
I don't know but don't worry, you're amongst friends here ;o)
Which part of planet earth do you live in?
Norfolk. Where's'you?

Lancashire. I think a mix of our two climates could be the perfect
conditions for a wonderful garden. All my lavendulas come from your
part of the world. I'm expecting to get a new one next year, Kew it's
called, it's a red one. Perhaps you've come across it?

david taylor wrote:
Sorry another late reply from me. Rats do invade compost heaps if you put
cooked scraps on them both in town and country, We had a rat in our heap in
rural Cheshire-it had dug a beautifully cylindrical hole under the garden
fence to get to cooked kitchen scraps. Our cat dealt with subsequent
intruders.
The information on cooked food came from a farmer friend who has to control
rat populations as part of his job.
We now have a sealed wormery for kitchen scraps.
Regards
David Taylor

They'll also invade if your bird table is next to the compost container.
They'll also use it for a place to stay even if food is elsewhere.

Richard.

jane wrote:
After an experience I had last week, I would not visit the
greengrocer! I bought some pickling onions off the local market stall,
and they had onion white rot.
If I hadn't known what it was, I'd have put the rotten ones in the
compost and as a result, never been able to grow alliums again in
either garden or allotment.
As it is, the whole bag got binned into landfill - where hopefully the
spores will die off over the next 15-20 years.
As ever with these things, you have to be careful...

This is very much what I was fearing when our council provided us with
green bins 6 months ago for our garden waste. My first thought was that
they would recycle all the stuff they get from hundreds of bins and
sell it as council top soil or use it back into our public places. I
became really worried as I wouldn't trust say, a builder getting rid of
a garden which could be contaminated and then the council flogging it
back to the community. Do they have 'experts' monitoring what is being
brought through the green bins?

I compost mainly green material. As for kitchen scraps, meat or not, I
simply bury it wherever I can find a corner. The worms finish it off.
Fruit or meat will always attract some critter or other with wings or
any multiple of legs over two -- some preferred, some not.

Janet Tweedy wrote:
In article , david taylor
writes

We now have a sealed wormery for kitchen scraps.

So have I but it is used more like an off the ground compost bin as
the worms don't seem to do much,, in fact I've bought two lots as I
never saw any worms after a while in the first batch, though some
were dead in the yukky stuff that collect in the bottom. Where do
they go?
Think I might have to buy yet more worms to get the stuff broken
down
quicker.

janet

I'm sure we've done this before, but I'm absent-minded as well as
curious.

Why do you need to buy worms? Doesn't Mother Nature provide round
your way? Presumably it isn't a matter of NZ flatworms, as you've
found corpses.

--
Mike.

"Richard Brooks" wrote in message
...
david taylor wrote:
Sorry another late reply from me. Rats do invade compost heaps if you put
cooked scraps on them both in town and country, We had a rat in our heap
in rural Cheshire-it had dug a beautifully cylindrical hole under the
garden fence to get to cooked kitchen scraps. Our cat dealt with
subsequent intruders.
The information on cooked food came from a farmer friend who has to
control rat populations as part of his job.
We now have a sealed wormery for kitchen scraps.
Regards
David Taylor

They'll also invade if your bird table is next to the compost container.
They'll also use it for a place to stay even if food is elsewhere.

I'm guessing this is the explanation for the rat hole found leading down
under the decking in the garden of a friend - she has a huge phobia of
mammals - even squirrels - and it provokes a huge row if one tries to sneak
even a bread crust into her well-sealed plastic compost bin - whereas a few
feet away the food is spilling off the bird table ....

If I found my compost bin was encouraging rats I would probably deploy
chicken wire or something. (I did unfortunately choose a plastic bin with a
fairly useless sliding hatch but this is now turned to face the earth bank
the bin is set into)

One phenomenon I routinely observe is that worms are forever climbing up the
inside of my plastic bin and gathering under the rim of the cover.