Hello my name is Katie Rushworth, and today I am going to show you how to make homemade
compost.
Now this is my compost bin and it is fantastic, it has been made with pallets.
There is an online video on how to build this as well by Craig Phillips.I
am going to show you what can go into your compost bin to make the most wonderful compost
that you can use all over your garden for free.
So, first things first, as this has got large holes in the side of it and ultimately when
all the material is in here I want to block out all of the light, so I am going to use
this weed membrane to hold in the material and also create a cover to block out the light.
So I want excess here.
Now I am just going to tack that in place with a few nails.
OK, so that should stay in place now.
And then this will effectively be my lid which will then fold over whatever goes in there.
Now compost is about a mixture of two things, you want both carbon in there and vegetation.
Um, so I have a huge variety of things that will go in.
Firstly all the cut flowers from the house instead of throwing them away in the bin as
usual these can now all go in the compost.
I also have things like this willow, which can go in but first of all I am going to snap
it and break it up because I wouldn't necessarily put anything in that was thicker than this.
This is around pencil thickness.
Anything thicker than that and twiggy will take far too long to decompose, so to help
this speed up I am going to break it up.
I have got more flowers.
And then any vegetable peelings whatsoever.
I would kind of limit the amount of citrus fruit that goes in but apart from that anything
else, so I have got some lettuce, some cucumber, I think over here I have got some more bits
and pieces.
I have got potato peelings, carrot peelings so nothing will go to waste.
Banana skin.
I also have here some lawn clippings, now lawn clippings are great and you want to kind
of sprinkle them evenly over the pile if possible rather than just putting them in a heap in
the middle.
And you don't want too many of these because once the bacteria get in and this hole thing
starts warming up, if there are too many grass clippings in there it will just turn to sludge,
and that is not what we want.
We want lots of air to be reaching everywhere in the compost bin and thats why the sides
have been left open.
This is an anaerobic process so it is all about how much air will get in and therefor
that oxygen will feed the bacteria and therefore that will speed up the decomposition.
That is all my flower tops from the garden.
Another things that can go in is eggshells, and these are brilliant and even the cardboard
from the egg container.
And this is the carbon factor.
Another carbon option is paper, this has all been shredded which is wonderful if you have
a shredder at home and you can shred paper then all the better because again it will
just speed up the hole process.
And the bizarrely enough, you can also put in anything that is 100% wool or 100% cotton.
So any old jumpers you have got lying around, any old t-shirts that the kids have outgrown
they can also go in.
And I am going to chop this one up.
Now to speed up the whole process.
Every week or so you should just come out and check how moist your compost heap is,
you don't want it too moist because the you will get that sludge but you do want to add
some moisture to just kind of keep things moving along.
It is also a really good idea if you have a garden fork if you shove that in a wiggle
it around and then again it gets more air and oxygen in
to the pile.
And before you know it there will be worms that come up from the ground and help speed
the whole process along and within the space of 6 months I reckon you can easily have something
that looks similar to this.
Which is beautiful rich organic matter, there is no better thing you can give your garden.
And the best way to use this stuff is either when potting up containers, hanging baskets,
you can mulch your garden with it so in the spring time if you use this to lay on all
of your borders in and around all your plants um it is just fabulous stuff.
The worms will come up, bring it down into where the roots need it the most, do all the
hard work for you.
It locks in moisture, suppresses weeds and feed plants and it has cost nothing.
It is wonderful stuff, for more videos visit Silverlinetools.com