[Digger Dan]

Thanks Walltoall and Liparis, I'm more at ease now to go ahead with kitchen composter, just need to ensure that no cooked or meat products stray into bin!

One point I'm not clear on is how the enclosed plastic bin type composter work when you can't turn the heap to allow the oxygen to do its work? It appears you just pile in the right mix of feed in at the top and remove your compost at the bottom (some time later!)

I like to idea of adding composting worms as I was thinking of getting a wormery!

______________________________________________
Digger Dan

[walltoall]

Hi DiggerDan,
My plastic do-for works best when I mix the stuff that goes in. A bit of this and a bit of that. The important thing is not to stuff it with one type of material. Each time I add a mower box of grass I scatter some soil over it before the next clippings go in. Or shredded paper if I happen to have some stored. (I usually do). As for stuff like cabbage stumps I put them through my LIDL shredder, with woody prunings even bits of timber. You don't have to turn the contents of a plastic composter. It's custom built to supply air through the slats.

The turning thing applies only to compost heaps like they used to make in the middle of the last century. Most of us have moved on since then. My plastic composter has doors at the bottom where you can poke out ready made compost ongoing. As you remove perfect compost at the bottom the level on top goes down allowing you to add more material. Incidentally I also use a composter made from planks notched so they form a 'slatted box' and it works very well too. With that one you prepare a full box, leave it for maybe a year, take the slats apart, turn the contents out and start over.

[Liparis]

I'm afraid I've never used those plastic ones, I'd never get all my material into them. Hopefully they will have airholes in the bottom at least, as a certain amount of liquor is released. Being relatively small some air holes may be sufficient. I would imagine the hobby type you get that can be revolved may be better and faster at composting as they would allow air through the compost when you turn it. Failing air holes, then get a stout cane and plunge it down through the compost from the top in numerous places to allow air in.
By the way, that liquor should be saved if possible, it's perfect liquid feed for tomatos etc. especially if you use worms. I'm intending to build a wormery which has a method of running the liquor out into containers this year to use as such feeds.
Bill.

[walltoall]

Hi Liparis
I don't know how DiggerDan's Carbury Plasics composter works but my one came (from the local council at a knockdown bulk price) flat-pack in five pieces. Four sides, each with it's own slide-up door. And a clip down cover to keep the contents dry! I take off the cover only when useful rain is forecast. Else it stays firmly on. The device is basically pyramidical with a square top. It's much wider at the bottom and I'm sure this is to enable compost to slip down. It holds about half a cubic metre which is useful in a small urban garden useless for industrial scale. The sides have moulded slots all over. I wish I had a camera and knew how to use it.

Down at the local allotments thay use pallets. Each unit holds a cubic metre. At last count they had about thirty running. All in a line down one side of the allotment. Probably one each but they seem to all work together. These guys are serious. They even rake up the local park in Autumn for the leaves.

[Liparis]

Yes, I use pallets.
I asume and hope when they rake up the leaves in the park that they put them into a seperate composter? Leaf mould needs to be done seperate for two reasons. 1st the breakdown proccess is different, it's done fungally, while compost is done bacterially, the two working against each other could (emphasise on could) make a mess of the compost. 2nd Leaf mould is far too valuable a commodity to stick on a composter and dig into the garden. It makes a better seed sowing or potting compost, much better than you could buy. Layer of leaves, thin layer of soil, layer of leaves etc etc.
Bill.

[walltoall]

Liparis
Any day I don't learn something new is a bad day. Thanks for making today a good day with that little snippet about leaf decomposing fungally. I bet the allotment guys are doing just that. They're a crafty bunch, very skilled, very hard-working but they keep their horticultural cards very close to their chests. Are all allotment people the same?

[Liparis]

Nah! only some. Most allotment sites, I would bet, love talking about what and how they do it. The only time it's secretive is when they are big into showing etc. Then the're like golfers 'of course I'll show you how to play golf, just ask anytime'. how about this weekend or next then? 'Oh, sorry, tied up those weekends, but I'll ring you'. I think somethings wrong with my phone, it's never rung
Bill.

[birdie]

[Liparis]

Thanks for that, Birdie. It just sums it up, hilarious, but sums it all up. The beginning of the 70's saw me assist with setting up a village show for the allotment holders. It was a teeny village, probably better classed as a hamlet. A little cheap certificate for first, second and third place. Prize money consisted of about 50p for first place etc. The craic was brilliant, the banter and teasing was great. All in all, it really was fun. After a few years it folded, the fun disapeared. Guess what killed it? yeh, what I call the veg show terrorists. Believe it or not, they moved in on the show to take as many 50p as they could, bosting that they were showing their rubbish and keeping the bigger stuff for the big money, we were like a practice for them. We hadn't set things up to keep it as a local fun day. They killed it stone dead.
They did speak about a restart with rules to prevent that happening, but I moved away so don't kow if it did or not.
As verge said, those enormous veg are tasteless and useless. I just cant believe the extremes these people go to. In the UK, near show time, they sit up 24 hrs guarding things with any weapon they have, I know of someone who wired his greenhouse door handles etc to the mains electric
I'm afraid that's not horticulture! Thank God verge had the sense to lock the thread.
Bill.

[Organicgrowingpains]

From an allotment digger who grows to eat! I had to follow the link from birdie to see what it was about I think verge won that contest hands down!
I have 2 compost bins at home where I put all kitchen peelings etc. If I put in grass clippings I throw in some compost ( from a bag)to cover it. In a previous post GPI said not to put in citrus fruit or peelings as it kills off the worms. I have since stopped adding these but it may be too late,I may have worm free compost at the moment. I intend emptying both into the raised bed when I get it up and running.
In autumn the trees out in a green at the front drop leaves all over the place, I sweep them up in to black bags, tie the tops and punch holes through them to let in air. There are 4 bags behind the shed now,2 to use this year as leaf mulch and 2 to leave rot down for next year.

[walltoall]

Hi Birdie
I'd never seen that post before and I'm in stitches. It was great that it was left safe on the website and I commend it to all you lurkers out there. Only the Yanks .. None of my allotment friends go that route. I think they are not so much closed as totally bemused at my Irish accent and attitude.

[Digger Dan]

I planted the first rebuilt raised bed with potatoes this week. I used the compost (of sorts!) from the old compost bin and topped up with the peat compost from the old strawberry bed to fill. I was surprised that I had about 0.75m3 of compost or about 10 bags, if I had to buy it!

This year I decided to go with two varieties, earlies and a main crop.

For the earlies I went with Red Duke of York and for the main I chose Desiree

The packs contained 10 tubers each and cost €2.49 from the Drinagh Garden Centre http://www.goldenpages.ie/detailsSearch.ds?detailsListingId=IE_10664627_9999_1001
It seems a lot for just 10 tubers but in previous years I would have bought one 2.5KG bag but always ended up with tubers left over that I had no space for. This year I went for variety and to try and spread the harvest over a longer period.

I planted out 16 tubers, 10 main and 6 earlies in the raised bed at 250mm intervals in rows 600mm apart at a depth of 150mm approx.. This is a little tighter than what is generally recommended but I'm hoping the raised bed can still support a good crop.


I spread some general purpose pellet fertiliser I bought in ALDI but it seems a little weak and I may need to apply a more specific feed as growth appears (any suggestions?)


I have read a lot of articles about planting potatoes in bags and see that even some seed companies do their own special potato bag kit, e.g. UNWINShttp://www.unwins.co.uk/gro-sack-first-early-potato-growing-kit-pid1463.html
So I decided to go with my own version. I used some heavy duty plastic 'rubble' bags that I bought in B&Q (20 bags for €4.99). These are about 500mm x 800mm and seem the right size for the job ( i.e. not as large as most black refuse sacks). I perforated the bags to allow for drainage and rolled down the bag to about 300mm. I planted two tubers (Duke of York) in each sack and covered with about 100mm of compost.


As the potatoes grow I'll cover with compost and roll up the sides. I plan to move the bags into the polytunnel (as soon as I get it finished!) and hope to be harvesting in June!!

[Digger Dan]

Started to build the Polytunnel in the cleared space beside the garden shed. Not an ideal location for maximum sun but plenty of protection from the wind! There is now more sunlight on the plot since I cut down the leylandii to 6' however time will tell if there is enough sun getting into the polytunnel to produce good crops.

Stage 1 was to lay the base frame of scaffold planks for a 2.4m x 2.4m polytunnel.


The photo shows the cut down step for the entrance which will be made from a recycled shower stall!!

__________________________________________________________
Digger Dan

[walltoall]

Hi Digger Dan,
Nice bit of development work. Lovely photos. As far as polytunnels are concerned the primary requirement is sunlight. Actually it is the ultra-violet bit. The more sun you can get in, the better things will thrive. Oh! And a drop of water every day.
Best of luck

[blownin]

Digger Dan just a small point tac some of the blue plastic on top of the timber and drape it down the soil side, to stop water getting between the plastic and the timber.