Some of my top composting tips I have gathered over the last few years – I hope you enjoy!
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33 Comments
Home composting provides such an additional layer of resilience for gardeners /food growers – I always suggest people do it, even if it’s in limited amounts
Hi Huw, I think your shirt colour blends in very well with the bins and makes your garden happy as well. Just this morning we checked our compost bins and were very happy to note they’re almost ready in this heat. I added some left over manure to each of them which must have helped. Sometimes I use an unused veg patch to keep piling the material onto it and turn it in November. Easy as it’s closer to other beds and turning is easy and it’s ready next year to start early. We love composting and get major satisfaction to produce crumbly black brown compost 😊🧑🌾
Dried weeds can be used in place of SOME browns when building a compost pile, but it's important to remember that they still retain most of the nitrogen from when they were alive. meaning they're still green chemically even if they're visually brown.
Just something to keep in mind when building the pile as you still need a high carbon brown to balance the nitrogen rich green material
🌿💚👍🏽
Brilliant, as always. The longer I'm at this game the more I think 'green' and 'brown' is potentially misleading: it IS very useful for building a big heap with if you've got lots of grass mowings, but the whole thing falls down when you ask yourself, "if I wait till my grass clippings go brown, where does the nitrogen go?" Nowhere. Hay is a high nitrogen mulch as as brown as you like. What you DO need is a balance of 'structural/woodier' bits of plants, and 'sappier' bits. All in little bits, making a big pile, and kept moist.
"Fetch me my brown pants!"
Huw dropping knowledge for us all for free! Thanks Huw!
Great tips. I need to get better at composting at my allotments haha 😂, happy growing 🌱
The shirt is very lovely huw ❤
I have 3 different sized dalek bins I try to rotate at least once per year. All the old potted compost goes in as well as anything else from the garden. Mind I have a problem with ants setting up home in at least one dalek every every year.
How often should I mix my compost pile? Does more mixing speed up the process, or would that slow it down?
I love not having to clean a toilet anymore now that I compost I much prefer playing with the shovel
Huw check it out- so I also have Bocking 14 to use for liquid feed/compost accelerator. I also have a vermicomposting worm tower. I always freeze the food scraps before giving to the worms because they break it down so much faster. I thought, why not freeze my comfrey leaves to make liquid feed faster? So I did and the freezing process bursts the cell walls without destroying any nutrients. I pushed all the leaves down into a half gallon mason jar and put the lid on. Within 24 hours, it was already producing that blackish liquid feed that normally takes months in a bucket with a weight on top. I put the whole lot into a blender and then strained out that black gold liquid fertilizer concentrate. Mixed with water in the watering can, and plants being fed this take off virtually immediately! Just thought I'd share with you my discovery in hopes it helps some other gardeners this season. All the best, Janine 😊
"The greatest change we need to make is from consumption to production, even if on a small scale, in our own gardens. If only 10% of us do this, there is enough for everyone."
-Bill Mollison (Permaculture: A Designers Manual)
“The tragic reality is that very few sustainable systems are designed or applied by those who hold power, and the reason for this is obvious and simple: to let people arrange their own food, energy and shelter is to lose economic and political control over them. We should cease to look to power structures, hierarchical systems, or governments to help us, and devise ways to help ourselves.”
-Bill Mollison (Permaculture: A Designers' Manual)
These quotes aren't JUST about food. Do you knit, sew, repair engines, electronics or bicycles; bake or build? Do you code or design operating systems? …..The list goes on.
All of these skills can be shared cheaplyfreely, to supply ALL our needs.
Time for Victory Gardens Again?
"According to archived USDA fact sheets, there were more than 20 million victory gardens in 1943, which produced 10 billion pounds of food. In 1944, gardens provided around 40 percent of the U.S. vegetable supply. Tomatoes led the list in popularity, followed by string or wax beans, onions, lettuce, radishes, beets, and carrots. Two-thirds of the gardens were in towns, cities, and suburban areas."
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Agriculture
Audio is messed up in this one..
Where would suggest to put a compost bin when my garden is sitting with the front of my garden is in west to NW facing and my back garden is facing east to see. The shadiest spot is on the left side of my front garden. I am living in independent living accommodation and I won't be allowed to put a compost bin there. 😂😂
If you know anyone who is a dodgy plant grower that grows a certain "herb" they are always trying to offload coco coir or spent compost on anyone who will take it, makes a great brown material
No snitching though lol
Theme dressing is a fun idea! Great video, as always!!
I have used BD preps and compost starter for 3 years, definitely has helped. Other important thing I am doing is patience, letting it work
for 2 years or so. Thank for your tips.
I have 2 big pallett bins. When it shrinks down by half i transfer to a darlek . Works great. And may look at a hot composter
¡Bravo por tu camisa marrón a juego con el compost! Felicidades y agradecimiento desde Murcia (España)
But what if you can only have a very small compost bin? I know it leads to lost of problems but I just don't have enough stuff for a big one.
شكرا جزيلا
great shirt, great content, not the usual great sound quality, great nonetheless 🙂
Have you looked into slug mesh? I wouldn't be without it now, it's a hoop laid flat in a roll, big enough to cut into sections to sleeve a small pot or lay over a seed tray of peas to stop slugs and mice
This came at a perfect time! I have been loading the compost bin with my garden material and just thinking I have way too many greens and not enough browns.
Never put poison ivy in the compost pit, the oil (urushoil) causes the itching; takes like a year to breakdown. Just turning the compost can cause rashes.
Thanks huw your right about the breakdown taking longer we have the darlek compost bins for space and we leave it a year we have 2 but it always smells like a forest floor so that's a win ❤
For people low on space just put small wire baskets in the beds and toss your kitchen scraps in them.
I put all junk mail and the paper used when I get a package through a paper shredder for my brown.
I feel a compost shirt product line coming up 😊
Hi Huw, any ideas on using a tumbling compost bin?
I have been chucking loads of coffee grounds into a dalek composter alongside veg peelings and leaves etc. Feels like its taking forever to breakdown, I've been filling it for about 2 years and its like everything is in stasis. Any tips on helping to break it all down?