Compost - How much moisture?

 I've been experimenting with compost-making. I had a load of wire fencing
going spare, so I made a circular pen, aboit 5ft diameter and 3ft 6" tall,
filling with my compostable material, which is a mixture of grass sods and
stable straw mixed with horse excrement - and some dry straw which the
horses missed!

I have a book on self-sufficiency which tells me to shelter the heap from
the rain (very important, it says). So I did so, using a tarp.

I then aquired a few more bags of stable straw, mixed with horse excrement.
so I decided to make a bigger heap, interspersing this with the contents of
my original heap. So I created a bigger wire-fencing 'pen' and turned heap
1 into it, mixing on the new horse straw/excrement as I went. I also
sprinkled in a 3kg bag of compost accelerator, as I went,out of curiosity
to see if it really will accelerated matters. I hoesed water onto the new
heap, as I went, aiming to moisten the material, to a degree that struck me
as condusive to rapid rotting.

While forking the contents of heap 1 onto heap 2, I discovered that my
original heap was too dry at the outsides. So, after I had completed the
new super-heap, I wrapped a large tarp around the outside to prevent it
(hopefully) from drying out.

However there is still the question of how mucg rain should I allow to fall
on the heap. Anyone got any strong views on this? My objective is to
produce good compast in the shortest time.

Thanks...

Al

 


Al I will re-post here, a posting I made this morning. In a nutshell, keep
it wet.

Read on.



No it was OK Judith and it has taken some time to sort it out.

It was in fact too dry, the Ants told me that, but why?

we had to stand back to see the problem. The hedge, an Escallonia, had gone
mad and whilst we trimmed it back at ground to eye level, it had gone up and
over so that it shielded the compost bins and prevented the rain getting in.

Spent about 3 weeks attacking it back to bare wood, exposing the compost to
the air and sky, shredding and adding to the compost, in fact had to make
another compost stack.

Well over a month later, with plenty of rain and watering can water, and
more greenstuffs added, an inspection shows hundreds of worms, almost to the
top.

Hedge will now be kept reduced. Trouble there is that the birds liked it :-(

As you all know, we only have a small area for our gardens, but we seem to
produce plenty of composting material. What people do with anything larger
than our postage stamp I don't know ;-}

Mike


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Don't take life too seriously, you'll never get out alive.

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Thanks... Yes, I know one thing: my previous attempt seemed too dry hwn I
turned it. I think I'd have been better off if I'd ignored the book that
told me to shelter it from the rain.

I forgot to mention, I also forked in some freshly-dug earth every few
layers, tio hopefully introduce a bunch of worms and useful bacteria.

al