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I've just got a compost bin and have popped my first few bits in - veg peelings, egg shells, tea bags and some dead flowers from a vase and I realise that it'll take around 6 months or so before I can actually start using the compost from it, but I just wondered if chucking in a couple of bags of manure would speed up the process. The manure I can lay my hands on (literally ) is fresh rather than well rotted, what do you think?

Manure is brill to add to the compost bin as it gets it nice and hot and makes everything happen a bit quicker.

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

just the job, go for it!

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Imagination is everything, it is a preview of what is to become.

Just make sure you get a good mix. Add shredded newspaper, lawn mowings, all veg waste and peelings, teabags, coffee grounds etc. Don't build solid layers of any one thing, keep it all well mixed

I still find that it takes me a year to get usable compost. I have 3 bins so I just move from one to another and let the full one 'cook' - when it's done it's dropped to about half the height in the bin but it's all good stuff!

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It takes more oil than vinegar to make a good salad dressing.

vegheaven.blogspot.com Updated Sept 7th 2008

Thanks for all your advice. Very much appreciated

Comfrey leaves, urine, nettles will all help speed up the process.

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You know you're a hard nosed gardener when you pull the weeds from others plots!

Whenever I can, I cut up my composting ingredients into smaller peices obviously not necessary with potato peel as that's the size I try to achieve for anything else. Believe me, they do break down faster this way. Also it's a good idea to give the compost a good mix from time to time using a garden fork/spade so that the black decomposed bits towards the botton can 'rot off' newer addtions around the top thus accelerating the composting process. I'm not sure that even 6 months will be enough to get your compost ready for using, at least a year.

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Food for Free

A little tip is to get an old compost bag or similar and cover the compost this helps keep the heat in i know there is a lid on your bin but this will help as others have said chuck as much in the bin as you can at any one time as well this helps with the cooking jacob

Egg shells?

I hope you crushed them.
My experience is they take years to break down.. so I crush them, keep in an old fertiliser plastic tub and use as slug deterrent/ soil conditioner.

Good luck, I always get my hubby to pee on our composting heaps, helps a lot, the local stables provide us with good manure, that help speed up the process.

About egg shells, You need to make sure that you crush them before you put them in the bin.

For two reasons:

1. Most importantly Witches will go to sea in them if you do not crush them and sink ships.
2. Less importantly if you dont crush them the resual egg ferments in the shell and when you dig out the compost it stinks like hell.

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My phone has more Processing power than the Computers NASA used to fake the Moon Landings

This made me smile

How interesting! That will explain why Ive got an intact egg shell at the bottom of my compost bin! Bernie

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Appreciate the little things in life because one day you will realise they are the big things

a word of warning when you turn your compost heap with forks make sure you dont spear a frog or toad or other wildlife cause they are often 'camping' in there

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The love of gardening is a seed once sown never dies ...

and a third: rats and foxes are attracted to eggs and will root through your heap looking for them.

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~ What do I think of Western civilisation? I think it would be a very good idea ~ Gandhi

ref the wee, yes go for it but not tooooo much as it puts the worms off!

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Imagination is everything, it is a preview of what is to become.

Keep turning the heap to speed things up. I have three bins. The first is fresh stuff which is just filled to the top. When its full I turn it into the second bin and leave it until the first is full again when everything gets moved again. The last bin has almost finished compost, I remove anything needing a bit longer back to the middle bin.

It means a bit more work but I can get usable compost for mulching the beds in about 3 months.

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Digger-07

"If you think you can, or think you can't, you're right" Henry Ford.

Is that why your called digger LOl?

My first succes in the veg patch was my compost and like Digger I kept turning it and was surprised it was rotted in around 3 to 4 months. I was so chuffed. My raised beds were not quite ready to use so as my 2nd bin was nearly full I left the compost that was ready on a corner of where the completed bed was to be over winter and as the bed is now ready have spread it over the surface. I was surprised at the amount of worms there were in it. It is hard work to keep turning it but it seems to work.

I've heard before about this 3 bin system, thats what monty and titchmarsh do. But i just dont have the room for that many. After a year though i've used my first homemade compost. Its really quite amazing what comes out at the end isn't it. I turned mine over about 3 or 4 times i reckon through the year.

I've been told that potato peelings shouldn't go in the compost. Not sure if that's an old wives tale or not, but I've been faithfully putting it in the council compost (they'll take anything, even meat/fish). Anyone got any light to shed on this?

I've been composting potato peelings just fine. Nearly anything organic can go in. The only reason things cant is if they may atrract pests/vermin like rats.