Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: Grubbypaws on April 08, 2024, 09:26
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My husband loves his home made compost hotbin and makes tons of great stuff but he insists on putting chicken and lamb bones in. He insists that they add beneficial nutrients but as far as I am concerned they just dont breakdown and require fishing out of the compost when I use it. Who is right? He says that he will start cutting them up into smaller pieces but I worry that this will just make them jagged and sharp for when I extract them :(
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I have a hot bin I purchased and I don’t put bones in. Having said that I did find a dead blackbird in the garden last year and as our grey bin wasn’t being emptied for over a week, I did chuck that in there. It disappeared and there was no trace of anything when I emptied the bin.
You might get away with cut up chicken bones, but I think lamb bones might be a bit of a stretch. Just my opinion, but the risk of injury from cutting up bones or stabbing your fingers on sharp splinters when using the compost outweighs any minor nutritional benefit they might add.
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Make no bones about it ...
No bones in the compost. They don't add much of anything unless they are finely milled into bone meal. I'm fairly certain a mill (grinder) capable of making bone meal would be too costly to be worth doing that bit at home.
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Depending how secure your hot bin is you risk attracting rodents certainly applies for a conventional bin. Also if you have had bones in the compost it could attract rodents to the beds where the compost has been used. As I’m not a rodent I don’t know how long the smell would linger. ;)
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Just my opinion, but the risk of injury from cutting up bones or stabbing your fingers on sharp splinters when using the compost outweighs any minor nutritional benefit they might add.
Thank you New Shoot. He has listened!
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Make no bones about it ...
No bones in the compost. They don't add much of anything unless they are finely milled into bone meal. I'm fairly certain a mill (grinder) capable of making bone meal would be too costly to be worth doing that bit at home.
Thank you Sp. He has listened!
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Depending how secure your hot bin is you risk attracting rodents certainly applies for a conventional bin. Also if you have had bones in the compost it could attract rodents to the beds where the compost has been used. As I’m not a rodent I don’t know how long the smell would linger. ;)
And even bigger pests. Foxes need no encouragement here as it is. One of them, a lactacting vixen, recently set up home in my enclosed compost 'bin' and burrowed herself a nice cosy bed in there. I couldn't use it for a couple of weeks in case she'd had her cubs in there and I didn't want to disturb them (or risk mama bear attacking me). But this has at least reassured me that my compost must be nice and warm.
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:ohmy: Foxes really get everywhere. One comes up to the cat flap and terrorises my cat. Would probably go in my compost bin if it could open it. And the smell….
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We put bones through ours all the way up to full chicken carcasses!
Bones tend to breakdown from the inside out and we regularly come across them on the plot but they are pretty inert once they've been through a hot bin and don't attract any issues. Seems a shame to waste those nutrients