Compost Bins
 

Having down-sized garden, I no longer need the 2 large compost
containes that I left behind.

I'm wondering about one of these plastic conical bins, put it
in at the top, shovel it out at the bottom.

Do they really work well, or will I need 2 of them (I'm not
thinking of the heated type).


--
Roger T

700 ft up in Mid-Wales

Compost Bins
 

In article ,
says...

Having down-sized garden, I no longer need the 2 large compost
containes that I left behind.

I'm wondering about one of these plastic conical bins, put it
in at the top, shovel it out at the bottom.

Do they really work well, or will I need 2 of them (I'm not
thinking of the heated type).

I have 3 (only because our council gives them away) and have them
stashed out of sight around the garden to dump weeds in. Compared with
me real compost bins (4 ft cubes made with pallets) plastic bins don't
ever heat up much and are very slow. You can forget "shovel it out the
bottom"...doesn't work. But they are a no-labour system. Every so often
I lift off the dalek from its mostly rotted contents, like taking the
bucket off sandpies, and leave the compost in situ for birds to spread,
move the dalek to new spot.
Ants love them, make large colonies and probably do most of the
composting; periodically I harvest their piles of fine soil from inside
the top iof the bin, good for potting.

Janet.

Compost Bins
 

On 26/02/2017 20:35, Janet wrote:
I have 3 (only because our council gives them away) and have them
stashed out of sight around the garden to dump weeds in. Compared with
me real compost bins (4 ft cubes made with pallets) plastic bins don't
ever heat up much and are very slow. You can forget "shovel it out the
bottom"...doesn't work. But they are a no-labour system. Every so often
I lift off the dalek from its mostly rotted contents, like taking the
bucket off sandpies, and leave the compost in situ for birds to spread,
move the dalek to new spot.

I have two.

You can't turn the compost. The only real way to do it is to lift it
off, move the compost, put it back and refill.

And as Janet says - forget the door.

Andy

Compost Bins
 

On 26 Feb 2017 19:52, Roger Tonkin wrote:
Having down-sized garden, I no longer need the 2 large compost
containes that I left behind.

I'm wondering about one of these plastic conical bins, put it
in at the top, shovel it out at the bottom.

Do they really work well, or will I need 2 of them (I'm not
thinking of the heated type).


--
Roger T

700 ft up in Mid-Wales


Have two down on the allotment for years, never yet had anything out of
them, it just seems to disappear. I now throw all waste into our normal
open wooden compost bins at least I get some compost from those.
--
Regards
Bob Hobden

Compost Bins
 

On Sun, 26 Feb 2017 19:52:18 -0000, Roger Tonkin
wrote:

I'm wondering about one of these plastic conical bins, put it
in at the top, shovel it out at the bottom.

I have four, and in a small garden they work well, if everything added
is fairly small, I add a lot of torn up cardboard wine boxes, once the
bin is full I turn everything out and put it back into another bin,
which had its contents tuned and moved down the line, that way
everything is tunes at least three times, before creating a bin of
good stuff in about seven months, and over the year about 300 ltrs
total.
Two shredders, office one for all the paper, and garden one for all
the twigs etc.
I do keep a dustbin full of garden shredded materiel over the winter,
to slowly add to the kitchen waste as lawn clipping are not available
Cannot stress enough, brown corrugated cardboard is the magic addition

Compost Bins
 

On Sun, 26 Feb 2017 20:35:00 -0000, Janet wrote:

I'm wondering about one of these plastic conical bins, put it
in at the top, shovel it out at the bottom.

Do they really work well, or will I need 2 of them (I'm not
thinking of the heated type).

I have 3 (only because our council gives them away) and have them
stashed out of sight around the garden to dump weeds in. Compared with
me real compost bins (4 ft cubes made with pallets) plastic bins don't
ever heat up much and are very slow. You can forget "shovel it out the
bottom"...doesn't work. But they are a no-labour system. Every so often
I lift off the dalek from its mostly rotted contents,

Very similar to what I was going to type,
With mine they stay fairly warm because they are very sheltered and I
pile other vegetation and grass clippings around them.
Each one also has a section of perforated land drain pipe running from
top to bottom to assist with aeration as the contents can get
compacted . I have also placed them on some iron drainage grids I
obtained , these allow worms etc to colonise but discourage rats who
before doing that burrowed under in into them.
As others have said shovelling out can be difficult , get the odd
bucketfull but it less frustating to tip one over completley then sort
the material that has turned into compost and then shovel what hasn't
back in .

Our also came from the council for free , I have noticed there are
usually some used ones at our local dump/recycling center where the
operators sell them off for a couple of quid.

G.Harman

Compost Bins
 

On 26/02/2017 20:35, Janet wrote:
In article ,
says...

Having down-sized garden, I no longer need the 2 large compost
containes that I left behind.

I'm wondering about one of these plastic conical bins, put it
in at the top, shovel it out at the bottom.

Do they really work well, or will I need 2 of them (I'm not
thinking of the heated type).

I have 3 (only because our council gives them away) and have them
stashed out of sight around the garden to dump weeds in. Compared with
me real compost bins (4 ft cubes made with pallets) plastic bins don't
ever heat up much and are very slow. You can forget "shovel it out the
bottom"...doesn't work. But they are a no-labour system. Every so often
I lift off the dalek from its mostly rotted contents, like taking the
bucket off sandpies, and leave the compost in situ for birds to spread,
move the dalek to new spot.
Ants love them, make large colonies and probably do most of the
composting; periodically I harvest their piles of fine soil from inside
the top iof the bin, good for potting.

Janet.

I have one I inherited and the slow worms love it, so I do much as Janet
does and don't move the empty bin too far when it gets mature. Ellis.

Compost Bins
 

In article ,
wrote:

On Sun, 26 Feb 2017 20:35:00 -0000, Janet wrote:

I'm wondering about one of these plastic conical bins, put it
in at the top, shovel it out at the bottom.

Do they really work well, or will I need 2 of them (I'm not
thinking of the heated type).

I have 3 (only because our council gives them away) and have them
stashed out of sight around the garden to dump weeds in. Compared with
me real compost bins (4 ft cubes made with pallets) plastic bins don't
ever heat up much and are very slow. You can forget "shovel it out the
bottom"...doesn't work. But they are a no-labour system. Every so often
I lift off the dalek from its mostly rotted contents,

Very similar to what I was going to type,

And ditto. I am a lifelong compost-maker (read: experimenter), and
shunned these plastic things for years. Then for space reasons I tried
one: amazing. For several years now I've had three: each year I empty
one, invert the contents of the next one, ditto for the next, and the
resulting empty bin gets the current years material.

To empty: lift off the plastic shell. To fork compost, everyone needs a
muck fork, available at your local farmers' supplier, or, e.g.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Gardening...rong-48-Inch-H
andle/B002VA4CCO

- a Top-Ten Tool!

John

Compost Bins
 

Many thanks for the all responses. Having used a 2 year cycle
before with proper open compost heaps, I had not thought of
doing the same with these bins - must be the age :)

Not sure if I'll have room for 2 (or 3) I'll have to see when
the work has finished.


--
Roger T

700 ft up in Mid-Wales

Compost Bins
 

On 26/02/2017 19:52, Roger Tonkin wrote:
Having down-sized garden, I no longer need the 2 large compost
containes that I left behind.

I'm wondering about one of these plastic conical bins, put it
in at the top, shovel it out at the bottom.

Do they really work well, or will I need 2 of them (I'm not
thinking of the heated type).



I have a couple which I top up on a regular basis. They don't make
compost particularly fast except in the hot summer weather. I put mine
on bare soil and get lots of beneficial worms in the top layers of the
rotting material.

Check https://getcomposting.com/
your council may subsidise the cost

--
mailto: news {at} admac {dot] myzen {dot} co {dot} uk

Compost Bins
 

On Sunday, 26 February 2017 19:52:02 UTC, Roger Tonkin wrote:
Having down-sized garden, I no longer need the 2 large compost
containes that I left behind.

I'm wondering about one of these plastic conical bins, put it
in at the top, shovel it out at the bottom.

Do they really work well, or will I need 2 of them (I'm not
thinking of the heated type).


--
Roger T

700 ft up in Mid-Wales

Roger,

If you are still watching this thread may I say that we have used four compost bins for about twenty years now. We fill one and then move the material along to the next bin and so on until it reaches the fourth bin, usually after a year or so. From the final bin it then goes into our bigger pallet composters. WE don't use the stuff from the fourth bin because it is always a bit coarse at that stage. A final period in the bigger open composters breaks it down to a better, more usable mulch.

That said, we don't use accelerators at all and I think that the use of such things might speed up the process considerably. Like you used to have, we have plenty of room to let things sit for as long as it takes.

Compost Bins
 

In article aa9d892f-bf9a-4dbd-84c4-5a8b419dc3c4
@googlegroups.com, says...

On Sunday, 26 February 2017 19:52:02 UTC, Roger Tonkin wrote:
Having down-sized garden, I no longer need the 2 large compost
containes that I left behind.

I'm wondering about one of these plastic conical bins, put it
in at the top, shovel it out at the bottom.

Do they really work well, or will I need 2 of them (I'm not
thinking of the heated type).


--
Roger T

700 ft up in Mid-Wales

Roger,

If you are still watching this thread may I say that we have used four compost bins for about twenty years now. We fill one and then move the material along to the next bin and so on until it reaches the fourth bin, usually after a year or so. From the final bin it then goes into our bigger pallet composters. WE don't use the stuff from the fourth bin because it is always a bit coarse at that stage. A final period in the bigger open composters
breaks it down to a better, more usable mulch.

That said, we don't use accelerators at all and I think that the use of such things might speed up the process considerably. Like you used to have, we have plenty of room to let things sit for as long as it takes.


Thanks Compo, that is more or less what I have concluded. Not
sure if I would still be able to use the compost in 3 or 4
tears - age creps on!

See you in zetwas
--
Roger T

700 ft up in Mid-Wales

Compost Bins
 

:)