Compost Heap

 

Up against our newly erected concrete garage which gets no sun as its north
facing we have made a compost construction of some timbers which made the
roof of our old brick garage.(which has been demolished)
This "Heath Robinson" construction is 18"(1'6") deep by 18'(18ft) and
nobody will see it but our family.

Now I relise that I have built this thing in haste and maybe dropped a
clanger as we were hoping to use this to put garden clippings such as
cabbage leaves, carrot tops, spent bean stalks etc..All the usual garden
waste AND leaves from our many trees.

We have been told that tree leaves must be seperate from normal garden
refuse and that as the heap gets no sun it will take years before they rot
down.

Give me some good news please.

Sandra and Micky

 

wrote:


   All living things are good but I¹d skip fat.  The surface area is
important  smaller being better as the main issue is oxygen contact.  
You can chop it fine or leave it bigger which take longer.  Turning your
pile increases O2 contact  so  I'd turn your large  into thre or more
divisions and turn into the next .  Think of O2 as fire, rust, burning,
rotting same thing just at different rates in time.

 http://compost.css.cornell.edu/physics.html

--
Bill  S. Jersey USA zone 5 shade garden
  globalvoicesonline.org
  http://www.davidmccandless.com/
 
 

 


'Escargo[_2_ Wrote:

which gets no sun

You can put leaves of most trees in with other waste in a compost heap.
Oak
takes a long time to decompose though. The lack of sunlight should
not be a
problem, it is the decomposition process which creates the heat
in a heap.
However the shallow depth might be, our is 2 metres by 2
metres by 2 metres in
depth. And in any case, if the stuff does take a
long time to rot down, so what?
We only empty out the complete heap of
ours every other year.
And if the stuff only turns into some bad smelling slime, then all you
do is
bury it in the garden and it will rot down in the soil.




--
Owdboggy

 




    Shred the leaves, if you can, and disregard further composting
advice from that source, sez I.

    The heat comes from aerobic decomposition, not from the sun. It's
and indicator, not an instigator. What "Bill S." said: His "site-ation"
is excellent, IMO.
    The importance of water can't be overemphasized. It might help to
think of composting as microbe farming :-) The pile must be kept
uniformly moist but not so wet as to trigger anaerobic decomp.
    Disregard all of the crap about green-to-brown ratios and nitrogen.
If you think it "need" N, then that's what blood meal is for.
    That's enough. Too many participants here cannot retain more than a
few sentences and I already have overshot the mark.
--
Good Luck,
the Balvenieman
USDA zone 9b, peninsular Florida, U.S.A.

 




Interesting, I use 10-10-10 with success. An our piles are mostly Oak in
3'dia x 3'H pens. They are under trees, they do get some morning sun,
but it basically dries them out.

Cheers