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Author Topic: how can i make good compost at home?  (Read 6413 times)

highhorse

  • Joined Feb 2014
how can i make good compost at home?
« on: April 16, 2014, 09:41:07 pm »
i always seem to need compost and its rather expensive really so for all you experiencec gardeners, could you please tell me how or give me some tips on how to make my own! i grow flowers, shrubs and veg so would need to suit all!! thankyou!!  :farmer: :wave: x

shygirl

  • Joined May 2013
Re: how can i make good compost at home?
« Reply #1 on: April 16, 2014, 11:06:35 pm »
the best compost I made was when I got a tractor to scrape all the pooey muddy sludgy sloppy gateways in the winter into a big pile. left it for a good year if not two and it was the best ever compost.

Cactus Jack

  • Joined Oct 2013
  • Tortosa catalunya
    • stevel100
Re: how can i make good compost at home?
« Reply #2 on: April 16, 2014, 11:30:59 pm »
Get a couple of donkeys, add some pigs, a few goats, loads of ducks and a few hens. Then get all the manure from them and in six months with a bit of mixing, you will have more manure than you can shake a shovel at. And it will be much much better than anything you will buy

Fleecewife

  • Joined May 2010
  • South Lanarkshire
    • ScotHebs
Re: how can i make good compost at home?
« Reply #3 on: April 17, 2014, 12:56:08 am »
There is manure, garden compost and seedling and growing composts.  Which of these do you mean?  :garden:
"Let's not talk about what we can do, but do what we can"

There is NO planet B - what are YOU doing to save our home?

Do something today that your future self will thank you for - plant a tree

 Love your soil - it's the lifeblood of your land.

highhorse

  • Joined Feb 2014
Re: how can i make good compost at home?
« Reply #4 on: April 17, 2014, 10:35:34 am »
hi

one that could do them all? something multipurpose.

i have a couple horses so im assuming if piled up and left that this would make good compost?

what about kitchen waste etc?

also how long does it take and is there a way to quicken the process?

thanks eveyone  :thumbsup:

clydesdaleclopper

  • Joined Aug 2009
  • Aberdeenshire
Re: how can i make good compost at home?
« Reply #5 on: April 17, 2014, 11:28:22 am »
You need a good mixture of high carbon stuff like straw and high nitrogen stuff like poo and kitchen scraps. Also to make the best compost you need a bit of clay. To speed up the process you need to turn it to aerate it.
Our holding has Anglo Nubian and British Toggenburg goats, Gotland sheep, Franconian Geese, Blue Swedish ducks, a whole load of mongrel hens and two semi-feral children.

Fleecewife

  • Joined May 2010
  • South Lanarkshire
    • ScotHebs
Re: how can i make good compost at home?
« Reply #6 on: April 17, 2014, 02:57:27 pm »
hi

one that could do them all? something multipurpose.

i have a couple horses so im assuming if piled up and left that this would make good compost?

what about kitchen waste etc?

also how long does it take and is there a way to quicken the process?

thanks eveyone  :thumbsup:


You can't grow seedlings in manure, well rotted or not - it's simply too full of nutrients.  Building a pile of horse manure and letting it rot down will give you really good 'well rotted farmyard manure', not compost.  This can be added to a base of garden compost for bigger plants, or dug in to your veg patch to feed the plants throughout the season.  If your horses are bedded on straw, the manure will rot down quickly, but if they are bedded on wood shavings, decomposition is more of a problem - the rotting wood actually uses nitrogen to break down, so can't be used for a lot longer or it will rob your soil of nutrients rather than add them.

'Multipurpose compost' as bought in the garden centre is for use in both growing seedlings and larger plants, but its nutrients run out after six weeks, so it's not a long term growing medium, or something you add to a large area of ground to raise the fertility.

Compost made in a heap, of weeds, old plants, a bit of cut grass and maybe some guinea pig cleanings, will give you what is known as garden compost.  This can be dug into the earth as with FYM, but is slightly less nutrient rich.  It can also be used as a mulch around plants for a general nutrient boost, or a little mixed with sterilised loam and some peat or coir to make a medium for growing strong seedlings and young plants.

In practice, many people make a mixed 'compost heap' and use it for everything, but it is more effective if you use the right product for the right occasion.  I can never make enough garden compost, so I like to use what I do have for a specific purpose.

I have in the past made my own seedling and young plant compost from a mix of sieved molehill soil, sand, peat, sieved garden compost, a little ash and some seaweed meal.  I would add to this a small amount of FYM for growing plants longer term, or if I used artificial products I could add a pelleted fertiliser.  For growing on brassicas I would add a little more ash, for legumes, tomatoes and so on, I would add a small amount of FYM.  If using this mix I would also give frequent liquid feeds.

I don't grow anything much in containers, but keeping up sufficient nutrient levels in these is always a problem.

For growing in the ground, you would add garden compost and maybe chopped comfrey leaves for flowers, for fruit and veggies you would dig in FYM, except for carrots and that kind of root, which just goes in an area you manured the previous year.

There isn't really a 'one for all' quick fix - you need to modify and adapt a basic mix by adding what each plant type needs.
« Last Edit: April 17, 2014, 02:59:18 pm by Fleecewife »
"Let's not talk about what we can do, but do what we can"

There is NO planet B - what are YOU doing to save our home?

Do something today that your future self will thank you for - plant a tree

 Love your soil - it's the lifeblood of your land.

HesterF

  • Joined Jul 2012
  • Kent
  • HesterF
Re: how can i make good compost at home?
« Reply #7 on: April 17, 2014, 11:32:33 pm »
My composting techniques are still haphazard - I aspire to Fleecewife's philosophy - I tend to mix the dirty chicken bedding (hemp or flax) with green stuff from the garden and peelings/egg shells/coffee and tea grounds etc. from the kitchen. I try for layers. We haven't yet got organised enough to turn and that was my plan for this year but we ran out of our rotted FYM so started to dig into our compost heaps and actually it looks pretty good - good enough to mulch the fruit trees anyway. We have six big bins and ideally we'll be adding to one, then leave it to rot down a bit, then turn it over into the next bin combined with some other half rotted compost for more time. However, we just end up filling all the bins and going into overflow piles which I haven't worked out yet - clearly more bins needed.

Oh, and I've seeded comfrey this year because I've read soooo much about comfrey 'tea' being fab as both a compost accelerate/additive and as a direct fertiliser.

Fleecewife

  • Joined May 2010
  • South Lanarkshire
    • ScotHebs
Re: how can i make good compost at home?
« Reply #8 on: April 18, 2014, 12:45:32 am »
We have three big bins for manure - a pallet's length each side for each one. This is mostly from the chicken houses and is straw based, but also contains sheep manure and some of the kitchen waste (this bin is closer to the house than the compost bins, so often whoever is emptying the kitchen veg bucket dumps it in the wrong but closer bin  ::) ) I used to turn them, one into the next one along the row, and actually quite enjoyed it, but since I suddenly became decrepit in 2011 I haven't been able to turn them again.  The final result is in fact no different whether I turn or not, although perhaps the turned stuff makes more quickly.  There is a wonderful feeling of smugness which goes with turning your heap  :roflanim:

I have a slightly smaller double bin for garden compost, but as I had a horrible red mite infestation throughout the veg patch last year, I burned all the stuff I cleared, so there's not a lot in those heaps.

Another source of great FYM is in the sheep shelters - we have seven dotted around, which the sheep use for lambing and for when it rains, snows etc.  The bedding gets peed and pooped on and trampled down and after a year it has made some wonderful useable stuff.  We just scrape the loose bedding off the top and slice out the FYM from underneath, like cutting peat.  One of the shelters is quite big, and a couple of years ago we moved it.  This left the bedding heap behind - it was surprisingly deep.  It was so good that I used it in my polytunnel and have barely used it all up yet.

A small source of pelleted manure which doesn't need composting is sheep droppings from the winter, when they are eating a lot of hay.  If the ground is frozen then the sheep will each leave a small pile of dry pellets on the ground when they get up in the morning.  If you can bear to make yourself a laughing stock, these droppings can be swept up and kept til spring, to sprinkle around plants which just need a little boost.  Great stuff.
"Let's not talk about what we can do, but do what we can"

There is NO planet B - what are YOU doing to save our home?

Do something today that your future self will thank you for - plant a tree

 Love your soil - it's the lifeblood of your land.

Q

  • Joined Apr 2013
Re: how can i make good compost at home?
« Reply #9 on: April 18, 2014, 08:58:04 am »
I make compost through the year using the berkely method which I find very effective.
Basically, I chuck all my weeds and green waste along with chicken poo and straw- give it a good water and leave it for 2-3 weeks. 
As it gets hot I then turn it from one bin to the other every two or three days then after 6 weeks dump it all in a storage area.  because i have 2 compost areas, I can do that 6-8 times through the year.

I dont pay much attention to what goes in except I chop up big brassica leaves and dont put too much grass cutting at the same time.

I have just emptied my storage area over the allotment.  A years production is about two pallet areas full to the brim of good compost which went a long way.
If you cant beat 'em then at least bugger 'em about a bit.

midtown

  • Joined Oct 2013
  • English Lake District
Re: how can i make good compost at home?
« Reply #10 on: April 18, 2014, 09:09:40 pm »
You need a good mixture of high carbon stuff like straw and high nitrogen stuff like poo and kitchen scraps. Also to make the best compost you need a bit of clay. To speed up the process you need to turn it to aerate it.
The purpose of the clay is what exactly?
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.  ~Douglas Adams

clydesdaleclopper

  • Joined Aug 2009
  • Aberdeenshire
Re: how can i make good compost at home?
« Reply #11 on: April 18, 2014, 09:51:29 pm »
It helps the formation of humus which is more stable and a better soil conditioner than compost made without it as it has a higher cation exchange capacity. Clay has a negative charge which attracts and holds the positive nutrients in a non soluble form which is then made available to plants by microbial activity.
Our holding has Anglo Nubian and British Toggenburg goats, Gotland sheep, Franconian Geese, Blue Swedish ducks, a whole load of mongrel hens and two semi-feral children.

midtown

  • Joined Oct 2013
  • English Lake District
Re: how can i make good compost at home?
« Reply #12 on: April 19, 2014, 12:55:46 pm »
True, while clay does hold all the positive charged nutrients that are released from the organic matter, organic matter itself has its own negative electric charge and holds positive nutrients in a similar manner to clay.

The addition of soil to the compost will very likely introduce sufficient natural occurring clay particles to enhance an exchange.

Bear in mind also, if we are fortunate to have another summer like last, the soil will be extremely rich in soluble nitrate - itself negatively charged. The advantage of autumnal and winter planting is the soluble nitrate is absorbed and converted back into organic matter and retained.

Good well rotted organic material will be consumed by insects and bacteria, with both producing beneficial waste of their own making. This is the humus that binds the particles and minerals together to make soil.
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.  ~Douglas Adams

ellied

  • Joined Sep 2010
  • Fife
    • Facebook
Re: how can i make good compost at home?
« Reply #13 on: April 30, 2014, 10:06:14 am »
I have ponies that live out and occasionally use an open strawed barn, so a ready source of FYM.  The chooks are on shavings so I don't put that in the same heap and often send it to the council as they have better facilities, but if they're messing up the back steps and patio, or I'm mucking out nest boxes with straw in, then that goes on the heap along with garden weeds (not ragwort, docken/dandelion roots or couch grass/ground elder as they reinfest and grow!) and raw kitchen waste, eggshells, coffee grounds etc. 

Then I get a digger in to clear the deep litter out of the barn and clear muddy boggy gateways and areas around the ring feeders (manure/trampled hay) and those heaps sit in a paddock for 1-5 years and then a scoop of that goes a long way on the veg beds!

Some of the bog around the water trough got barrowed out to avoid contamination of the trough and that got heaped on a veg bed to dry and rot in situ - my plan is to put a layer over the top of either the 5yo heap which is pretty much rich soil now, or else of grow bag compost, and I'll use that to plant out the veg so they have roots in the top layer but the bottom is still work in progress.  Not done that before but I had a lot of boggy mud this winter and it had to go somewhere!
Barleyfields Smallholding & Kirkcarrion Highland Ponies
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cloddopper

  • Joined Jun 2013
  • South Wales .Carmarthenshire. SA18
Re: how can i make good compost at home?
« Reply #14 on: June 02, 2014, 08:50:52 pm »
hi

one that could do them all? something multipurpose.

i have a couple horses so im assuming if piled up and left that this would make good compost?

what about kitchen waste etc?

also how long does it take and is there a way to quicken the process?

thanks eveyone  :thumbsup:

 Check out " The Berkley 18 day hot composting method " .
You'll have a very very high quality compost for all purposes that is weed free IF you follow the system .
 
There are also numerous lists of things you can use in your heap/s.

 Don't go too high with animal based manures being composted for this tends to make the compost a tad too acidic .

The Berkley method gives you a balanced compost with very slight acid content  which most plants can easily handle  .
Strong belief , triggers the mind to find the way ... Dyslexia just makes it that bit more amusing & interesting

 

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