Making Compost

Before we moved here eight years ago. We hadn’t got space for a large composting area so we bought a worm hotel.

They were all the rage at the time, and we actually got on very well with it. It was remarkable how quickly the worms broke down the material.

There was also an added benefit of liquid fertiliser that you drained off, it was fabulously potent stuff!

We brought the worm hotel with us when we moved, and set it up straight away. We throw almost no food away, but we do like to compost all of our vegetable peelings.

It served this purpose well for the first three years, whilst we deconstructed the garden. Before re-building it with a new compost area.

Time to build a Compost Bin

We wanted to put it at the end of the garden out of site. As the garden gets gradually narrower, eventually ending in a point, there is limited space down there.

As we wanted to maximise their size, we decided to make our own. After spending a lot of time looking at various compost bins online, we came up with our design.

We constructed a rectangular wooden box with two bays, approximately 1m x 1m each, joined together.

We built a brick base for the wooden bays to sit on, to stop the base from rotting too quickly.

The front is constructed from removeable wooden slats, that can be lifted out one at a time, to make emptying easier.

Our idea was, that once one bay was full, we could fork the material into the other bay, giving access to the compost in the bottom.

The newly completed compost area, just beyond the freshly planted white garden.

Filling the Compost Bins!

When the bays were first completed in November 2016, we still had a lot of work to do transforming the garden.

There was so much material, that we quickly filled both bays. We probably could have filled a dozen bays!

We have had to take huge amounts of shrubbery to the recycle centre. But we have continuously used the bays, for the last five years.

With hindsight we really could have done with a third bay, and we may have to find a way of creating a third one in this tight space.

Finally getting to the good stuff!

Incredibly in the five years we’ve been using them, they’ve not been emptied. Amazingly the mass has just kept reducing. It has meant though that they have not been used properly, and we had so far had no compost.

This winter something had to be done! Just before Christmas we finally had a dryish day and got stuck in.

We forked the fresh spoils from one bay to the other, until it was piled precariously high. Then filled multiple buckets and bins, until we reached the good stuff!

As we dug through the layers we found thousands of wonderful worms, doing their thing. No wonder it had kept reducing down so well.

We placed the riddle over the wheelbarrow, and forked the compost into it.

The larger twiggy bits, got scattered onto the flower borders. Whilst the beautiful fine compost got piled up, temporally onto the rhubarb. Ready for use on the raised vegetable beds.

By the way, if anyone ever tells you, that composting your wine corks is a good idea. Ignore them, because it isn’t! Even right at the bottom, they looked just the same as when I’d put them in there five years ago!

Once we’d completely cleared the one bay, we noticed quite a few roots coming up. We think they are from the walnut tree right next to it. In an attempt to stop them coming up too far, we’ve put some horticultural membrane down in the bottom, just to form a bit of a barrier.

We slotted all of the wooden sections back into the front of the bin. Then forked the newest material out of the other bay, into the bottom. We came to an abrupt halt though as we saw someone looking back at us!

Who’s sleeping in the compost bin?

They always say to be careful not to disturb (or worse) hibernating hedgehogs, when you dig around in your composting area. But as there is no possibility of a hedgehog abseiling up and into our wooden bins, we had no worries. Unfortunately we’d forgotten about ‘Dotty’ our resident wood mouse!

There she was, sitting quite still, looking up at us in disgust that we’d just ruined her little den. Luckily we hadn’t done her any harm, so I caught her in a bucket and popped her into a leaf pile near by.

Her encounter doesn’t seem to have slowed her down, as we witnessed her running around at speed the next few nights on the outdoor camera.

The compost bins had also evidently been used by another resident of our garden. The squirrel! We are used to finding sprouting nuts all over the garden, and the compost bays were to be no exception!

Well at least I had lots of compost to pot them into!

Stay safe & happy gardening.