We got two 330 litre bins through the council for very little. We transferred two years' worth of compost from out existing heap (made from old doors with sacks over the top in winter, not very effective) into one and started filling the other. The full one is pleasingly wormy
Unless you can have a 5 tier system, or at least a 3 tier system and have vast quantities of garden waste to keep those heaps going, I would recommend the plastic Daleks. I have a whole battery of them. They are perfect for a domestic situation. Two will work for an average garden. I have 7. In order to get them hot, you want to mix what you put in there, so don't layer ash/chicken shit/kitchen stuff/grass clippings, cardboard. Mix them together. It is important to add brows and make sure things are cut up. I stick stuff like rhubarb leaves and spent cabbage plants into a flexitiv and use the shears to cut it all up in there. That way they get to about 60 degrees. I ad cardboard for browns, shredded. Because the bins don't get as hot, I leave them for a whole year before using them. When a bin is full, I stop adding too it and leave it to compost. It makes half a bin of spreadable stuff. Because it doesn't get as hot as a windrow or a hot heap (Charles turns his to keep it hot so it composts more quickly. I am a low maintenance kinda composter) I refrain from adding weeds I don't want on there. I burn what I don't want to compost and once a year I mix the bonfire ashes and the compost 50/50 and spread.
I have 4 plastic Daleks ( ) plus a large old metal water butt.
When I use the oldest very well composted waste, I turn the 2nd oldest compost into the now empty bin, the 3rd into the now empty 2nd and so on. That way prevents the compost becoming compacted (thus causing too little aeration) and too wet (both of which can cause unpleasant smells), and it also composts more evenly and very well quite quickly.
I'd like a smaller version of that...we have a gap in our holly hedge which would make a nice area...and we generate a lot of hedge clippings a couple of times a year that we've been dumping into that gap.
I have a (bought from the council) dalek. It has resolutely failed to make compost over the years. I've added compost energiser and worms at various times, to no real effect.
In happier news, yesterday bought a jostaberry and an Ena Harkness rose (to replace a very old one which finally expired) from the perhaps unlikely source of The Range.
My concern with the plastic bins is that they would be filled with hedge and shrub clippings very quickly. I could deal with the clippings separately, in a separate heap, or even take them to the local dump (I'm really not a garden fire fan), but dealing with garden and household compostables is the point of sorting out my composting arrangements.
I could also really use a shredder, but anything I wouldn't just break is too expensive to justify.
I have a fairly large compost area, with 4 heaps and the dividers made from old (untreated) fence panels. Typically turn each heap in late autumn (checking carefully for hedgehogs) and usually wait a couple of years before it goes on the garden in early spring. Lovely stuff. My garden has had nearly 50 years of keen gardeners adding compost and organic matter; the difference in the soil quality compared with the new housing estate and farmers field next door is quite marked.
I like Jostaberry, Dvorak. Easy things to take cuttings from, so I've given quite a lot of them away over the years.
You can go over the hedge trimmings with the lawnmower in stead of shredding them then add them to the compost?
A windrow compost heap needs no infrastructure and gets nice and hot. I have one alongside the Daleks, for the bigger stuff I don't want to put in them...
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