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As I approach middle age....I find us spending extraordinary amounts on both compost and food that is wasted in order to entertain and feed the children.
We are doing a lot of our own food growing these days which is keeping the kids entertained but the never ending need for compost has me wanting to process our food waste into compost for growing
What's the best option for being wildlife proof and manageable. A coalbunker style one looks like it would be a nightmare to turn over the compost and to get air into it - an open top is completely off the table - what about tumblers ? I guess id have to introduce worms artificially ?
I use the plastic “Dalek” shaped ones that our council used to give away - I’ve got five! Against all advice they’re on a concrete base. This keeps the creatures out, I use a starter shovel of compost whenever it’s a new “heap”. The sun warms the black plastic well, I mix with a fork every week or so and around every month lift it off and shovel into a different dalek. They produce excellent compost quite quickly, I did have a tumbler once but just ended up with solid balls.
The mix is important about 2/3 green to a 1/3 brown. Not many grass clippings except when mixed in well as an activator, torn up cardboard is excellent for the brown. Oh yes, urine sprinkled on is a brilliant way to speed the process up!
The worm turn up in their thousands from somewhere!
I've made them out of some 2x2 posts and pallet wood.
Sink into the ground.to make easier for worms and other creatures to come and go, as deep as you can really, and site at the top of the garden so the goodness naturally leaches downhill. To answer your specific question I've lined them with some wire mesh I got from Screwfix, holes about 6mm if I remember right. The worms can still get in and out but the rats can't, I can see where some have tried digging and and then given up so it does work.
I've never needed to introduce worms, they seem to find it ok, as do woodlice, slugs, centipedes, etc, etc. the more creatures you have in there the better. Needs something to get it started, unless you have a *lot* of food waste, grass cuttings are fine or a few buckets of horse poo or whatever but you need a certain mass to attract things.
Interesting about the balls in the tumblers.
I also don't really have space to have multiple units. Nor do I have a "top" of the garden. It's flatter than a flat thing.
Maybe a dalek on concrete might work but I don't have much faith in daleks ability to keep out rats. One of them ate through the aluminium valley gutter to get into my roof. - barstewards
We don't have grass cuttings either but I'll speak nicely to the neighbours I'm sure one of the two livery yards will be keen to shift some poo.
Daleks are cheap though so might give it a go and monitor wildlife situation.
I made a two bay compost bin from pallets, the fronts have removable slats to make it easier to mix it a bit. There are gaps in the sides and I covered them in spare rabbit run mesh and overlapped it over the earth around the edges.
I’m very careful to only put uncooked veg, brown cardboard, coffee grains on there etc, for about 9 months no sign of critters. Then we had some family stay and although I fished out bits of peanut butter sandwiches and left over rice, a few little bits ended up in the heap and within a few days the wood along the bottom had been chewed.
So absolutely no meat, cooked food processed or fatty stuff and it shouldn’t really attract rodents unless they are already around.
Another Dalek on Concrete fan here. Just got one, never had an issue with rats, worms go mad in it, just take all the good stuff out the bottom every autumn, keep piling the new stuff in the top. Empty loo rolls help with the brown portion. Lawn clippings in bulk just create a soggy layer, mix them with something else or use them as mulch.
If its mainly kitchen scraps then a wormery can give decent results. They do need a bit of management though otherwise they can dry out or get too wet or you kill all the worms etc etc.
Whilst having a rat problem in other parts of our garden at various times our original “Daleks” have never had intruders, they don’t have any hatches as the fact that they can be lifted for access makes them unnecessary. I did use one once with a small hatch at the bottom once that suffered a gnawing. I wouldn’t worry about grass clippings, they really don’t add much apart from being an accelerant- urine does that a lot better without the drawbacks. Rats also like an ability to escape as well as hide so one hole is not usually enough.
If they become a problem, this is what you need -
We have two c. 1.2m^3 ones based on a pallet like structure (slightly open boarded sides) sat on concrete.
Their main use is to rot down lots of garden waste including manky windfalls, leaf matter, grass etc. as we can't easily get the volume we need to the tip. When we put kitchen stuff in it attracted rats very quickly. They do this ok but I doubt the compost is particularly good.
Kerbside food waste recycling (now in place for us) is the answer for the rat issue IMO.
We had a tumbler and it worked OK but it really wants to be filled more or less in one go then run as a batch for a few weeks and then emptied. This was less useful in the yard of a terrace where we mainly fed it kitchen peelings and offcuts. It needed space to swing. 2 maybe 3 daleks Will use the same space.
We've now got a large garden and use dalek like ones for veg garden waste, veg scraps, some leaves and windfalls. They work well. We generally empty one full one a year and 2 on the go for filling.
I have separate large open sided composter made of pallets and scrap wood for grass clippings. I did get a suspected rat in one composter this winter. Put a bait box down, all the poison went in a week and the next lot hasn't been touched. No a big issue in 9 years. My daleks sot on paving slabs.
I did get a suspected rat in one composter this winter
Should add - as I think @worldclassaccident can attest, Goodnature traps are the answer to rodents, as nothing is more definite as smacking them on the head with a CO2 powered piston, and also isn't a danger to passing cats/crows/red kites (instructions actually say that the bodies will be disposed of by scavengers…)
Oh the rats live here. They have been here longer than me that much is for sure.
I' was drawn to a tumbler for the certainty of it. I don't have any green garden waste the lawnmower mulches.
It's literally house hold waste and I can spare cardboard and urine......
A worm farm does sound like a cool.kids project I'll read up.
Was hoping this year would be less compost intensive as I set up the beds last year but settling and growth means my 4ft bed that was filled is now only 1/2 full. Plus our scope has crept and we now have another bed going in for potatoes and rainbow carrots
We use a green Johanna which came from the council. It theoretically is hot composting and is quicker(?) - I’m no expert but have had far more success than with daleks in the past. Same tho as above - on concrete and thousands of worms find their way in. There are rats around but as yet haven’t caused any compost issues.
5 beds for veg etc which always require some mild topping up each year. By the time you’ve harvested and cleared them, then they settle and compress (again) over winter they look a bit low. Worth it for the home grown tastiness though.
Should say my dalek failure is purely my failure - dunno why I just can’t get on with them.
My raised beds need topping up each year. Between 6 beds 1 full composter and about 8 bags of spent compost from the greenhouse tops them up every year and the level seems to stay fairly constant. I think for no dig growing it's recommended to add 50 to 100 mm depth of whatever each year to keep the soil topped up with volume and nutrients for plants and worms etc.
I guess carbon and volume goes in from the compost and comes out as fruit and veg. Usually add a bit of manure and liquid feed too.
If anyone is in Southampton or near Southampton and wants sawdust to put into their composting to help bulk it up, I got bags full of stuff free if you want to collect it.
We've a large open-ended roto-moulded plastic bin with holes in the sides and a large lid, and a sliding hatch to get compost out of the bottom. It's a system my father-in-law developed when he was a roto-moulder. I put it on a base of bricks and pavers with mesh to stop things getting in from underneath.
Plenty of places round here that sell horse and cow manure for pennies to top it up.
I'm pretty sure there's rodents helping themselves, but occasionally there's a snake picking them off too! I should really line the inside with aviary wire to stop the rodents.