Composting..... first time gardener

[richie3846]

But earthworms are not the same as the red brandling or compost worms you find in compost. If you want to add some you either need to get some from someone else's compost bin or visit a fishing shop. Think you can buy them online too. My MinL obligingly brought me some one time when I had just started my bin when we'd moved house. Otherwise they just appear!

Silly me, I thought my worms were just regular worms that had got a bit podgy! How do they get there?

[Penellype]

I think they get there from eggs in the soil. If you add a spadeful or 2 of soil to your compost you will introduce all sorts of goodies like bacteria as well as worm eggs, which will help your compost to decompose.

[ButternutSquash]

But earthworms are not the same as the red brandling or compost worms you find in compost. If you want to add some you either need to get some from someone else's compost bin or visit a fishing shop. Think you can buy them online too. My MinL obligingly brought me some one time when I had just started my bin when we'd moved house. Otherwise they just appear!

My compost bin is on concrete, and full of compost worms, or at least thin red ones. They just appeared. The pile was originally massive, and on soil, and I moved it, so I assume these red ones came from garden soil.

I have a dalek, and a wooden compost bin. I'd recommend wood only because a 900 litre bin costs a mere £30 or so.

Human urine makes a good compost starter. I pour it on neat, they do say you should dilute it quite a bit, but I get good compost. I sometimes throw on brown cardboard boxes, and used hops from the local brewery. I avoid horse muck, too many weed seeds, it's not worth the extra work of weeding.

[snakeshack]

beware of putting weeds in that have been treated with weedkillers. Better to burn these or nuke them with a flame gun.

Also beware of grass clippings if you use weed and feed on your lawn


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[ButternutSquash]

If it has not been said, do not compost bindweed, couch grass, mint, or other plants that can thrive in the dark, unless you want to grow them.

[Bill HH]

A brandling worm is relatively small and quite red with yellow stripes, they are usually in your soil but not in great numbers, but when they get into your compost heap their numbers explode. You also find them in manure heaps, they like the rich stuff.
I never saw them in my garden, but as soon as I started my first compost bin it became full of them very quickly.

[Two_Sheds]

i have been chucking all my thinnings and failures etc into a big plastic dustbin

The fastest, bestest way to make compost out of those is to chop them roughly (or not, it'll still work but take longer) and leave them on the soil as a mulch