Welcome to Essex No Dig
How we make compost.
Starting your Compost station.
Once you have located & found some pallets (Preferably) which many companies are more than grateful for you to take away with permission of course then time to set up your compost station on your allotment. Wire the pallets together, Ideally these are the same size but, dont worry not essential. Then we line inside with cardboard as we do to keep cost down rather than also using black plastic we do recycle old used compost bags that we are given to us from time to time. You need to keep your compost heap covered and dry from rain to retain the heat. Again we use cardboard mostly, and a tarpaulin sometimes if lots of rain forcast, your local grocer store should be more than happy to save plain brown cardboard for you as they normaly have to pay to dispose of it.
To start A/your compost station off we say go big with a 3 bay if you can. The Daleks or small 2 bay is fine too. Remember the secret is chop up small with a good quality mower and be able to turn once ideally. Pallet size heap/s we found gets hot hot to kill most of them seedlings and weeds we add.
Fill No 1 bay then cover and leave 6 weeks. After 6 weeks, turn No1 bay into bay no 2, while still filling No 3 bay . When No 3 full and after 6 weeks composting down, turn out on top of No1 in that you put in bay 2 at start.
Then wait for the magic to work another 6 weeks and you should have something like home-made compost,, not to wet not to dry - We aim and feel a temperature of 55c - 65c is ideal so dont be worried or wonder is it too hot. Buy a compost thermoneter they about 500 - 600 mm long stem for piece of mind to see how its cooking. Good fun to teach with children to we find.
Hey don’t worry about twigs sticks, it will break down on beds and the little bugger slugs & snails hate it too we have found.
Gardening is always Trial and error and we say you can sieve your compost if you have the time.
Keep it simple, adding to the heap, two buckets of greens and then a layer of browns and cardboard which works for us, making sure you take off all traces of plastic on the cardboard prior to you adding.
The smaller you chop up what you add to your compost heap the better with a lawnmower if you have a steel plate base mower, then quicker you will get good home made compost.
We are more than happy to share our success. Any questions click here contact us!
Happy Gardening - Good Luck!