[dugless]

A barrow load of runner beans Away for three weeks so they went hard  quite surprised at the amount though. 

[Steveharford]

Runner beans here too. Except I had picked them but just didnt get around to salting them down.

[pigguns]

Cucumbers  and still they come..... most off the one plant!  Not keen on the khol rabi much either.

[JayG]

Thanks for your suggestions about dealing with spent sweet corn cobs and roots Cadalot, Surbie100 and BQ.

Don't have many bonfires here so would have to store them for a long time, and couldn't really justify buying a shredder, so will probably fish out the roots and cobs, put the roots in the general waste, bash the cobs with a mallet and chuck them back in the dalek.

[surbie100]

My failures this year were the sweetcorn, some of my carrots (didn't thin, are not worth peeling) and the tomatoes which got blight. Pretty much everything else is being eaten - though if i can't figure out what to do with all the achocha and tomatillos they will go to compost heaven.

[Aled]

Some green potatoes went in Saturday, sad because i could of avoided it!
Cheers
Aled

[beesrus]

I have 3 composting systems.

A dalek that takes the odd grass clippings, comfrey leaves, veg peelings, and soft crop residues.. and the odd shovel of manure if I have it on hand. I call this my posh Bullingdon compost and is just about cooked after a year, ready for action including being a constituent for my Spring potting compost.

The woody stalks of corn, sunflowers, artichokes, brussels etc go to a big palleted pile along with veg peelings, annual weeds, the odd layer of soil, and larger crop residues like cabbage leaves. This pile gets moved every year leaving a sieved nice fertile bed, and the stalk remains are just raked off to stew some more by starting the new compost pile somewhere else.

All perennial weeds/couch/clods/pruned raspberry vines/bramble/hedging etc are covered and composted separately for 2 years, and result in the most wonderful bed after that period, with only a few remaining live roots to pull out.

Not every last growth gets composted, as I have the odd bonfire still, if I'm feeling evil.

[Christine]

I've just moved and turned the annual compost heap (next year's squash bed) and counted all the things that I've been "given" - overwintered woody beetroot from another plot holder who'd forgotten about them, the clippings off a hedge opposite my plot plus all her lawn clippings. I'm known as "Mrs Compost almost anything"!

[kirpi]

Considering the years of use I have enjoyed so far from my electric shredder and the mount of stuff I would ordinarily have either put in the household refuse or just had to accept that the compost was going to take a lot longer to complete, I consider my shredder well justified.

Runner bean vines, squash vines, sweetcorn stalks and spent cobs, raspberry canes, blackberry canes, tomato vines, pea and bean vines and brassica main stems - all cooking nicely where before they would have sat for years before.

Maybe your allotment society could consider buying a communal shredder?

Oh - and I did compost some very woody celery as well!

[Mrs Bee]

Well I haven't yet but if Mr Bee brings another bag of gherkins after todays and I may just..................

[Beano]

This year is the first year when I havent worried about wastages. I just pick what I need give away to friends and leave the rest for the wildlife or compost. It's been liberating because on previous years I've fretted over recipies for chutney etc. and we have ended up with years worth of preserves.
I enjoy the garden much more this way.

[Aled]

The last of the carrots were not composted. They were given to our neighbours horses!
Cheers
Aled

[surbie100]

This year is the first year when I havent worried about wastages. I just pick what I need give away to friends and leave the rest for the wildlife or compost. It's been liberating because on previous years I've fretted over recipies for chutney etc. and we have ended up with years worth of preserves.
I enjoy the garden much more this way.

Very good philosophy there! I have just stuck nearly 30 beetroot that won't get any bigger into the compost, guilt-free. It was a 'let's see if this works' that didn't work and now I know for next year. 

[Robster]

What a cruel thread .  So my biggest confessions are;
All my outdoor tomatoes.  Also tried gerkins- total failure ignorance stupidity and lack of knowledge.  And that goes for about 75% of my sprouts.  There we are three crops all in the composter.

Ahh...  I feel better now.  very cathartic.

[Kevin67]

30 beetroot?

My wife would eat that in a month... She's always telling me I don't do enough beetroot!