I was interested in building my own composting bin along the beehive-like lines suggested by Alys Fowler in her book that I like very much, “The Thrifty Gardener” (link on the right hand side of this page), but we bought a plastic bin for the time being.
These aren’t commandments – it just seemed a marginally catchy title, if only for the first nanosecond. They are just good practice in my experience:
- Build the compost heap in thin layers and mix ingredients.
- Regularly fork over or mix the compost to aerate it. Air flow is a must.
- Soil layers are good every so often.
- Vegetable scraps are a good ingredient…
- … so are tea bags ….
- … and cardboard or newspaper, preferably in small pieces. Wool and cotton likewise.
- Very small pieces of wood and small twigs are also a useful constituent.
- Composted bark works well with the above as well.
- You can also rot weeds down in water for a few weeks and add them, with care.
- Add water if the heap is drying out too much. It needs to be kept at least slightly moist.
Having opted for the plastic bin this time, laying the heap on bricks placed on their edges to further help air circulate was an idea from Alys’ book. After about three months now, this all seems to be working well, starting to decompose without mess. In our case, we don’t put leaves in as we have a separate open pile that will create a nice leaf mulch …. eventually.