Compost corner in the garden

Am I the only recycler in the village?

I am a keen recycler. When I peel the potatoes and veg I always dump them on my cubic metre active pile of rotting stuff. When I cut the grass I also add this to the pile, mixed in with the main pile.

I have already a pile of stuff rotting away which should be ready for use next autumn which I shall turn over in the spring. I mulch as much as possible round my hedges, and acquired a month ago 30 whelbarrowloads of sheep poo which a good quantity ended up on the garden ready for next season.

Near to us is a huge Wertstoffhof called Vivo where you can obtain fresh compost. You drive onto a weighing station with your trailer, tell them you want a cubic metre of topsoil or compost and they radio through to a big Bagger who when you arrive mutters something incomprehensible in Bavarian to you then proceeds to offload a ton of soil in thr trailer.

I must have bought about 10 loads of this stuff for my garden this summer. I shall be doing the same for another part next summer when I ´restore my other lawn.

Anyone else have similar facilities near them?

Oh ja. Gibt's überall, oder?

I have a compost pile in the back corner of the garden. I now have all the rich dirt that I want.

We have three composting bins. But, we only have leaves and grass in there (at the moment). We also bought some of that 'quick composting' stuff to help it compost. It was packing down so quickly this summer that I was able to put the cut grass in each week without filling it up (it went down so fast). But, I do not know how long it takes to compost that stuff.

Plan on two years.

A good mix and not too much grass (it takes longer to rot) at a time is important. The compost should also get enough air. I did read somewhere that it takes at least 7 months to rot properly, our summer compost is mostly rotted now. A bit of old compost on new compost should also give it a kick-start.

It's good to mix some rougher stuff in with the grass clippings and some green stuff in with the autumn leaves. Without sufficient oxygen, the grass clippings turn into a slimy mess and without sufficient nitrogen, the leaves turn into hard slabs that are slow to decay. One way is to keep a pile of leaves at the side and mix a few in every time you put in grass clippings. Small twigs also help oxygen get into the pile.

The Starbucks near me leaves their used and bagged coffee grounds by the door and at least once a week I pick up a bag to add to my compost pile. Lots of good nitrogen in there! There's rats, raccoons, cats and foxes near where I live so other than the occasional apple core, food scraps aren't added to the pile.

I don't have a garden, so: no.

So is this 'quick compost' stuff that we bought - is this the nitrogen that we need to make everything compost? We only got our composters last spring and I haven't checked the bottom since like August so I don't know what it looks like. Like Blauger, we don't put anything except garden stuff in ours because of the animals so I'm wondering really, how long it will take.

KK64: I'd wait two years. I have turned mine over - they are about two cubic metres of compost about twice, and they weren't ready when I did them a few months back.

When we moved here a year ago I started the composting. So next autumn I shall be using it. This year I have simply swept all my leaves and grass clippings under the hedge hoping a good winter will break it all down and fertilise the hedge.

Yeah, that's the other thing. I raked and raked and raked this year - I think almost 40 garbage bags of leaves. But, I did not rake out under the bushes and trees that were surrounded by mulch earlier in the year. I just lose too much mulch when I do that and I had hoped that the leaves would break down and fertilize the trees and bushes. Is that a good idea?

Whilst I detest all the separating of plastic and metal and paper and blah blah blah and carrying it to recylcling bins myself, I do recycle organic waste for the garden. We also get horse manure from the stables which was rather good for my veg this year. I don't like sheep shit as much, it takes longer to squish up into tea than horse manure.

It's a great idea but it's doubtful the majority of the leaves will break down over the winter. It's really a matter of aesthetics so if you don't mind the leaves on the mulch, just leave them.

Another way to create mulch is to take the lawn mower and drive over the leaves, while on the lawn, repeatedly. It crushes them up nicely and you can use them to cover up the big leaves under the shrubs. This only works when the leaves are dry though, wet leaves will just clog the mower.

Wow, so it seems composting takes more time/ effort than I realized. Is it worth it, if I am going to be here only 2 years? In the U.S., our green waste was picked up every week, but here, it's every MONTH, and we have 2 huge lawns. Just trying to figure out how best to deal with all the gardening waste... Are there any special rules to composting here? Can anyone recommend a good website *in English* on what I should do? Also, should I build my own (large!) bin, or can I buy one somewhere? thanks

I've used this website before.

http://www.compostthis.co.uk/

thanks mulah, that's helpful. I have a lot of pine trees, and according to that site, it's probably not the best thing to add to "aerate" my compost heap, which would mostly be grass clippings.