How the batches were run
Methods
Each method write-up gives the space it needs, the time it takes and the odour risk it carries, then the arithmetic behind the first two. If a method has a minimum size, that minimum is stated rather than implied.
- 01 Sheet mulching: composting in place instead of in a bin Sometimes the right place to put 80 kg of compostable material is not a bin at all. A sheet-mulched bed converts lawn into growing space in one afternoon, using the same carbon and nitrogen rules in…
- 02 Cold composting: the pile that takes a year and needs almost nothing Not every pile is a project. A passive stack on the ground, built once, turned once, produces compost and leaf mould with about twenty minutes of work a year — and it is the right method for most…
- 03 Running a tumbler properly: two charges, not one Tumblers fail in a specific and predictable way — the material balls up, the middle goes anaerobic and the temperature collapses. The fix is partly technique and partly running two charges in…
- 04 Working out C:N and moisture before the pile is built Every smell problem in this log traces back to a ratio that was wrong before the material went in. The arithmetic takes ten minutes, needs nothing but a scale, and prevents most of what goes wrong…
- 05 The 18-day hot method, and why the size rule is not negotiable Turn every second day, keep the pile above 55 °C, and you can have finished compost in under three weeks. The catch is that the method only works above a minimum volume, and below it you are just…
Methods are written after they have been run at the bench at least twice, not from the literature.