Browse the record by material and method
Tags
Tags follow the materials, the bin types and the problems rather than a fixed taxonomy, so a batch can carry several at once.
beginners
5 published entries
- 01 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…
- 02 Kitchen and home waste: what goes in, what stays out Nineteen items from the average kitchen, sorted by whether they belong in a compost pile, a worm tray, a bokashi bucket, or none of the three.
- 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…
- 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…
- 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…
cardboard
4 published entries
- 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…
- 02 Office shred and delivery cardboard, 300 L insulated bin Two months of office shreddings, 14 kg of delivery boxes and a nitrogen problem that had to be solved with 2.4 kg of grass, because paper alone will not heat.
- 03 Carbon browns: the twelve materials worth knowing by number Cardboard is not leaves is not sawdust. The C:N spread across common browns runs from 45 to 500, and the moisture spread from 5 % to 40 % — picking the wrong brown is…
- 04 Summer grass clippings balanced with corrugated cardboard Nine mowings over eleven weeks, 780 g of nitrogen-rich clippings per mowing, and the two days the cage went sour because the grass went in wet and matted.
cn-ratio
3 published entries
- 01 Nitrogen greens: the materials that start the pile and cause the smells Every smell problem in this log came from the green side. Greens run from 4:1 to 24:1, they are 60-85 % water, and the strongest of them will clear a garden within a…
- 02 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…
- 03 Carbon browns: the twelve materials worth knowing by number Cardboard is not leaves is not sawdust. The C:N spread across common browns runs from 45 to 500, and the moisture spread from 5 % to 40 % — picking the wrong brown is…
grass
2 published entries
- 01 A 6 m windrow of municipal green waste, turned four times What happens when you compost at the scale of a small van load: 1,400 L of output, a 78 °C peak, and the outer shell problem that costs you 15 % of the pile if you…
- 02 Summer grass clippings balanced with corrugated cardboard Nine mowings over eleven weeks, 780 g of nitrogen-rich clippings per mowing, and the two days the cage went sour because the grass went in wet and matted.
hot-pile
4 published entries
- 01 Horse manure and straw bedding, two pallet bins A full winter's bedding from one stable box, 340 L of finished compost, and the anthelmintic question that decides whether it can go on a vegetable bed.
- 02 Summer grass clippings balanced with corrugated cardboard Nine mowings over eleven weeks, 780 g of nitrogen-rich clippings per mowing, and the two days the cage went sour because the grass went in wet and matted.
- 03 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…
- 04 Oak leaf and coffee chaff in a 190 L tumbler The first bin of the season: 22 kg of last autumn's oak leaves, 6 kg of coffee chaff from a roaster two streets away, and the moisture problem that nearly stalled week…
indoor
3 published entries
- 01 A four-tray worm system on kitchen scraps, nine harvests in No heat, no turning, no smell — but a 20 °C temperature ceiling that makes or breaks the whole system, and the pH drift that a strictly kitchen-scrap diet causes.
- 02 Kitchen and home waste: what goes in, what stays out Nineteen items from the average kitchen, sorted by whether they belong in a compost pile, a worm tray, a bokashi bucket, or none of the three.
- 03 Bokashi bran for 14 days, then a buried trench for 54 days The indoor answer for a flat with no garden: 38 kg of food waste fermented in two buckets, buried in a 2 m trench, and the pH readings that decide when the soil is safe…
insulated-bin
2 published entries
- 01 Poultry litter and sawdust through a January cold snap Six hens, 60 kg of litter, minus 9 °C nights, and the reason a poultry pile needs to be built in one single day rather than accumulated over a month.
- 02 Office shred and delivery cardboard, 300 L insulated bin Two months of office shreddings, 14 kg of delivery boxes and a nitrogen problem that had to be solved with 2.4 kg of grass, because paper alone will not heat.
kitchen-scrap
4 published entries
- 01 A four-tray worm system on kitchen scraps, nine harvests in No heat, no turning, no smell — but a 20 °C temperature ceiling that makes or breaks the whole system, and the pH drift that a strictly kitchen-scrap diet causes.
- 02 Kitchen and home waste: what goes in, what stays out Nineteen items from the average kitchen, sorted by whether they belong in a compost pile, a worm tray, a bokashi bucket, or none of the three.
- 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…
- 04 Bokashi bran for 14 days, then a buried trench for 54 days The indoor answer for a flat with no garden: 38 kg of food waste fermented in two buckets, buried in a 2 m trench, and the pH readings that decide when the soil is safe…
leaves
2 published entries
- 01 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…
- 02 Oak leaf and coffee chaff in a 190 L tumbler The first bin of the season: 22 kg of last autumn's oak leaves, 6 kg of coffee chaff from a roaster two streets away, and the moisture problem that nearly stalled week…
manure
3 published entries
- 01 Poultry litter and sawdust through a January cold snap Six hens, 60 kg of litter, minus 9 °C nights, and the reason a poultry pile needs to be built in one single day rather than accumulated over a month.
- 02 Nitrogen greens: the materials that start the pile and cause the smells Every smell problem in this log came from the green side. Greens run from 4:1 to 24:1, they are 60-85 % water, and the strongest of them will clear a garden within a…
- 03 Horse manure and straw bedding, two pallet bins A full winter's bedding from one stable box, 340 L of finished compost, and the anthelmintic question that decides whether it can go on a vegetable bed.
mulch
2 published entries
- 01 Hedge trimmings, chipped, and left for eight months Not everything in a compost bay is trying to be a hot pile. 300 L of chipped privet and hawthorn took 240 days and produced the best mulch in the garden.
- 02 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…
pallet-bin
2 published entries
- 01 Spent mushroom substrate, straight from a commercial grower 120 kg of spent oyster-mushroom blocks, already white with mycelium, and why the single most important step is breaking the blocks apart on the day they arrive.
- 02 Horse manure and straw bedding, two pallet bins A full winter's bedding from one stable box, 340 L of finished compost, and the anthelmintic question that decides whether it can go on a vegetable bed.
reference
5 published entries
- 01 Garden and yard residues: what to compost, what to burn, what to bin Eighteen materials from the garden, including the four that should never go in a compost pile at all — not because they will not break down, but because they will break…
- 02 Kitchen and home waste: what goes in, what stays out Nineteen items from the average kitchen, sorted by whether they belong in a compost pile, a worm tray, a bokashi bucket, or none of the three.
- 03 Nitrogen greens: the materials that start the pile and cause the smells Every smell problem in this log came from the green side. Greens run from 4:1 to 24:1, they are 60-85 % water, and the strongest of them will clear a garden within a…
- 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…
- 05 Carbon browns: the twelve materials worth knowing by number Cardboard is not leaves is not sawdust. The C:N spread across common browns runs from 45 to 500, and the moisture spread from 5 % to 40 % — picking the wrong brown is…
straw
2 published entries
- 01 Spent mushroom substrate, straight from a commercial grower 120 kg of spent oyster-mushroom blocks, already white with mycelium, and why the single most important step is breaking the blocks apart on the day they arrive.
- 02 Horse manure and straw bedding, two pallet bins A full winter's bedding from one stable box, 340 L of finished compost, and the anthelmintic question that decides whether it can go on a vegetable bed.
tumbler
2 published entries
- 01 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…
- 02 Oak leaf and coffee chaff in a 190 L tumbler The first bin of the season: 22 kg of last autumn's oak leaves, 6 kg of coffee chaff from a roaster two streets away, and the moisture problem that nearly stalled week…
wire-bay
2 published entries
- 01 Summer grass clippings balanced with corrugated cardboard Nine mowings over eleven weeks, 780 g of nitrogen-rich clippings per mowing, and the two days the cage went sour because the grass went in wet and matted.
- 02 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…
Only tags with at least two published entries get their own page; a tag page with one entry is not worth the click.