Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: sandygreen on April 26, 2010, 11:53
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I have recently transferred my compost over to a 2nd bin but it was very wet due to the cold weather. I put in some compost accelerator and some extra cardboard and shredded paper. It is starting to dry out a bit now but is still very wet. Not sure what to do, have only been making compost for a couple of years and it has never been this bad. Shall I add extra cardboard, just keep turning it over and hope?
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Same here Sandygreen; I normally get some quite good compost and some rather "rough" stuff from last year's compostables but I'm going to have to do a lot of shaking out to find much useable stuff at all so far this year.
Don't think there's anything else you can do; I think decomposition and the activities of various worms and bugs almost ground to a halt during the winter. I suspect the contents of my 3 bins were probably frozen solid for a few months!
A few of my friends grow quite a bit of their stuff in containers and I have been begging the used compost from them. Perfectly good as a source of humus as long as you take care what you use it for if previously used for growing spuds or tomatoes.
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When my compost is like that, I just scrunch up newspaper and put it in. It allow more air to circulate and so it dries out a bit more. :)
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I turned out all my winter stuff which was sitting there doing nothing and had a rat in there. I kept pouring water on it to try and get rid of the darned thing. It went eventually but left the compost looking rubbish. I would turn it out, and give it a good stir and add some cardboard or newspaper if it's still too wet. It should dry out now the sun is shining. Position your bin to get full sun! Keep some of your grass mowings, lay them out somewhere in the sun to dry and when brown and dry add them. They will heat up the contents of your bin and get it cooking again. I always have some mowings to hand and I keep them in a builders rubble sack and add them in thinnish layers to my compost bin as I fill it. Not adding too much at any one time is important as it will go slimy if there's too much. A good compost heap or bin is about the right mix of ingredients - like a good sponge cake :D
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Thanks for all this advice, I think I should get scrunching cardboard. Re the grass cuttings and drying them out, I have a lot of dandelions on the lawn (like everybody!). Can these go in the compost or will I end up with even more.
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If you are talking about mowed dandelions rather than the whole plant I don't see any problem unless the seed heads had already developed when you mowed! ;)
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You are drying them out in the sun (make hay while the sun shines :D) so any weeds should be shrivelled up and dead before you add them to the bin. Keep a weather eye out for the best time to cut the grass so you can get it dried out til it's brown. It's been a good time to do it in the past few days. Wonder if this dry spell will continue :)