Under the Choko Tree By Nevin Sweeney

Composters I have Known

Do you feel guilty every time an apple skin or the potato peelings end up in the rubbish bin instead of being recycled? Do you feel that you are depriving your beloved veggie garden of vital nutrients and are contributing to global warming and the filling up of our rubbish tips at the same time? I must admit to such worries and have had a number of shots at composting over the years, quite often without success. Following is an outline of the methods that I tried that didn’t work or didn’t live up to my expectations. None of the methods are my own invention but are ideas picked up from organic  gardening books and magazines.

The classic method of making compost using the three bays, each capable of holding a cubic metre or more of compost (one freshly laid, one composting and one ready for use) is without doubt the best. However, in the average urban/suburban backyard it takes up quite a bit of space, can look unsightly and add to the atmosphere in an unpleasant way, but most of all is the problem of the amount of organic matter required to operate this system. Each bay would take months or even years for the average city dweller to fill, but the idea is to have all the materials ready to go and then build the pile in one operation. So for me this method was unsatisfactory, I needed a composting system that would not be too unsightly, not take up too much space, be able to deal with regular small additions of materials be hopefully inexpensive and produce good compost. No small feat you may imagine, but here is my journey towards compost heaven.

The Pit

This is one of the simpler composting methods and was the first that I tried. As the name suggests the organic matter is shovelled into a hole in the ground and then covered and allowed to break down. How low tech can you get? On most counts it did pretty well, but the problem came with the first rain. We have clay soil and the rain seeped in and stayed, the result was a cold, sodden, stinking mass; some decomposition occurred but you couldn’t call it compost. Back to the drawing board!

The Heap

This is perhaps marginally simpler than even the pit in that the organic material is dumped on the ground and then covered. The problems that I encountered with it were twofold. The first was that once the chooks discovered it they immediately set about distributing it for me, free of charge, repeatedly! The second and more serious problem was the perennial one of being unable to accumulate enough organic matter to build a heap big enough so that the heat generated did not escape through the sides. A heap that big would also have looked mighty untidy and lost me brownie points with my lovely partner in sustainable living.
The Inverted Garbage Bin
This is based on getting a plastic garbage bin, cutting out the bottom, inverting it and putting the lid on the hole in the bottom (which is now the top, if that makes sense...). When the compost is ready lift up the bin and bingo, there it is ready to be shovelled to wherever you want. All very well in theory but in practice the mass was not large enough or well insulated enough to retain its’ heat and the result when the garbage bin was removed was a partially decomposed pile of yuk. There are other proprietary bins on the market that work on the same principle  but they tend to be larger with thicker plastic walls and these may actually work but can tend to become a bit pricey.

The Partially Buried Garbage Bin

This is a similar idea to the one above but the bottomless garbage bin is buried to around half or more of its height in the ground, right side up. The idea here is to provide a degree of insulation using the earth that the bin is buried in so that a higher temperature can be achieved and maintained. Again, a nice theory but the clay soil has its part to play and on the first rainy day water percolated up into the would-be compost and drowned it. This cold wet pile of rotting garbage was starting to be a mighty familiar sight, not to say smell.

The compost Roller

This consists of a metal drum on its side, elevated so a wheelbarrow can be fitted underneath to unloading purposes and fitted with pivots so the compost can be mixed by rolling. As a base I used a 205 litre drum due to low cost and easy availability. The rolling action introduced a new factor – the organic matter tended to form balls an inch or two in diameter that were fibrous on the outside and disgusting on the inside. Interesting but not very helpful. Again the main problem seemed to be lack of mass and/or insulation so the temperature could not build up for sufficient decomposition.

The Incinerator

For years we have been forbidden to burn off in our area and during this time the old cement block incinerator sat alone and unloved in a corner of the yard. It wasn’t unsightly, was cheap to get (free actually), takes up a small amount of space and copes well with small to medium sized additions. It also retains the heat and drains well so the quality of compost wasn’t bad, but a batch took a year to mature.

The old Daleks near the shed

The Dalek

You know – Dr Who and all that – The square-ish, top loading black plastic bin that sits on the ground and you harvest the compost from little doors at the bottom that is commonly seen in back yards today. We had two and they gave us reasonable service over the years. They were in the chook pen but didn’t get much sun so I transferred them down to the northern side of the southern fence and they worked tolerably well. They didn’t cost a lot and produced a dense but well flavoured compost (well nutriented any way and the veggies never complained.

The new aerobin

The Aerobin

After our visit to Michael Mobbs place in inner Sydney and seeing the row of council owned Aerobins in the part near his place, as well as his one, we decided that that was the bin for us. It looks good, has reasonable capacity, built in air flow and insulation to retain the heat of decomposition, even in winter. After installing it and removing the old Daleks I put the non-ripe compost into the Aerobin and was surprised at the amount of heat produced, even in late autumn/early winter. It is a bit too early to be definitive but ti looks like it might be a winner.

Compost hints

• Aerate your compost regularly by pushing a pipe down into it or digging it over.
• Where possible balance your nitrogenous materials like lawn clippings, veggie peelings fruit wastes etc with carbonaceous materials like straw, dry leaves, shredded paper or sawdust so that you get a ratio of about 25:1 carbon: Nitrogen.
• In my experience the “activators” you can buy don’t do much. If the pile is OK no activator is needed, if there is a problem the activator won’t fix it. Having said that it you MUST use an activator, try peeing in the compost, it adds nitrogen and may give it a kick start! (preferably at night when the neighbours aren’t watching.
• Don’t worry about adding lime, in a well managed compost bin the pH will take care of itself.

One more thing before I finish, if you read the books, especially the older books on veggie growing and composting, the thing you tend to see is that you should turn your compost over once it has had an initial heat up and break down time. The thing they say to do is to remove the compost from your bin then replace it such that the material around the outside is now on the inside and vice versa. The only comment I have to make on that is that the persons who recommend this practice have never actually tried to do it!

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