New compost Bin and other questions - HELP

Here's a good link on how and what to compost :-

How to make compost - full instructions

That depends on lots of things, which are probably mentioned in Bren's link.

Site it in full sun if possible, heat speeds things up considerably, as does nitrogen (pee, comfrey, nettles etc)

Not enough light in a house, usually. You might get away with a south-facing windowsill though.

GH might still be too cold though: it depends what seeds we're talking about ...?

if you sit it on a gravel patch, your first lot of compost will have gravel in it, good if you have clay soil, not so good if you hve stony soil, and not so good if you want the area to stay gravelled.
full sun is better, lots of nitrogen will speed the process along, it will take longer in winter than in summer, turning it frequently [once a week] will make it become compost quicker.
Put anything in it except for oil/fat of any kind, cooked meat/bones [ they attract rats etc and dont compost as quickly]
If it's smelly, it's too wet or not aerated enough, if it's too dry it won't compost, if you have ants in there it's too dry and you aren't turning it enough.
Put in equal measure of browns and greens, inlcuding eggshells, blighted foliage/stems, practically anything organic that wasn't meat or fish or oil/fat.
You can compost faeces but people are sqeamish about doing that, whether its humnan/dog/cat stuff, there are ways of dealing with those too.

I do. Not had any rats nor foxes to date, but if in doubt leave them out

Indeed Check out the humanure thread if you're curious

hello and welcome to the forum...

compost bin - and what it should contain.

fill with the following and try to mix equal amounts of mix.. not to wet..if it smells bad add more paper cardboard.

vegetable peelings, egg shells, little amounts of shredded paper /cardboard, grass cuttings,fruit cores apples pears etc, bannana peals, uncooked vegetable waste, rabbit droppings, tea bags, any vegetation waste from your garden / allotment..coffee grinds.. also wee......

do not fill with the following...

do not use cooked foods, animal waste dog poo/ cat poo are a big no no, meat, perenial weeds, cabbage roots not to spread club root.. also bad infected vegetables eg onion rot etc..

the term for use for the compost is usually once season a year.. but rots down quicker it heats up..

always read the seed packaging someone in a magazine will always print plant out now but they dont know we are going to have snow and frosts in febuary..


also see local council web site you can have the plastic darlek compost bins at a reduced price....
you may have to collect...

.. until you are a more confident composter.

Those ingredients can be composted, if you do it properly. You don't need big industrial heaps the size of warehouses either. This is a thorough examination of composting, not just the obvious. Chap.2 and Chap.7 give good info on thorough, complete composting processes that kill pathogens

The plastic darlek compost bins THAT MOST PEOPLE USE or the open wooden pallet types dont usually get hot enough to kill off pathogens and fully compost animal waste.. you can compost them in metal drum composters but most people dont invest in that type of composter...

Most don't, sure, but they could if they're done properly, and anyway it's not just heat that kills the bad bugs.

How hot does it have to be? And for how long? We (the general public) don't really know, and to be on the same side we're just told not to compost carnivores' poo.

My dalek doesn't have any snow on it: the rest of the garden is covered with snow. Even at zero celsious outside, my composter is warm ~ in summer it steams, and you couldn't put your hand in the middle, it's just too hot.

Do read this article, from my earlier link.

Pathogens exist on/in their hosts ~ they don't survive (for long) away from their hosts. As an eg. roundworm eggs (dog faeces) can survive in soil for months. Burying the faeces, or leaving it on the soil allows the surviving eggs to reinfect other dogs (and people), but proper composting introduces not only heat (through thermophilic bacterial action) but other organisms that destroy the pathogens.

The heap doesn't have to be hot for that many days to kill pathogens ~ depending on how hot it is. You can use a compost thermometer to take daily readings. The book explains better than I can.

"it’s relatively simple to deal with [faeces] if you can get a compost heap to heat up to above 40˚C or you can put it somewhere safely out of the way for a good long time ie 2 years" Composting Cat and Dog Poo - Could You?
It's usually recommended to only use carnivore compost on ornamentals, not on edibles (but we're happy to put sheep/cow/chicken/horse poo on the edibles), and some people even flush animal poo down the toilet, where it enters what is, in essence, our drinking water.

There's a bit more here: Composting Dog Waste | Care2 Healthy Living

I've just found the bit I was looking for:

"bacteria were grown both in an incubator and separately in compost at 50°C, they died in the compost after only seven days, but lived in the incubator for seventeen days.
This indicated that it is more than just temperature that determines the fate of pathogenic bacteria.
...other factors ...affect the viability of ... human pathogens in a compost pile. Those factors require as large and diverse a microbial population as possible, which is best achieved by temperatures below 60°C (140°F).
One researcher states that, "Significant reductions in pathogen numbers have been observed in compost piles which have not exceeded 40°C" Humanure Handbook: Chapter 3: Compost Biodiversity

Fascinating stuff, and it turns everything we "know" about composting on its head.

[QUOTE=Two_Sheds;944295]Most don't, sure, but they could if they're done properly.

How hot does it have to be? And for how long? We (the general public) don't really know, and to be on the same side we're just told not to compost carnivores' poo.

This forum question was by a female general gardener with young children my advice was to add general compost matters and advice not to include material that could harm them-selves or young children...not to be added as an in depth information on the does and donts.. or pros and cons of composting.. animal waste... etc... thanks for the read on the link...

[QUOTE=allotment grower;944308]Does gender really matter here ?

not at all.. sorry to genderise this..

just read the original post and it says they have young children
personally i would not give advise to anyone that could protentially harm themselve or young children..

we have two kids our self and when they were young they were always in the garden with their hands in dirt one minitue and the next eating a biscuit ..