DIY composting

RiaX

RiaX

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So I've been doing some research on this and basically you need a few things:

Air
Water
Carbon (brown)
Nitrogen (green)
and a starter which can be compost or plain old soil or a fancy compost starter.
Lots of mixing


Was looking at something like this:

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South Africa's leading online store. Fast, reliable delivery to your door. Many ways to pay. Shop anything you can imagine: TVs, laptops, cellphones, kitchen appliances, toys, books, beauty & more. Shop the mobile app anytime, anywhere.
www.takealot.com www.takealot.com

But I have no idea how it works or if this is the correct product. What you guys use to make your own compost. Im looking for a very small scale version that does not smell. Any tips and tricks ?
 
I built these in December, but pretty much anything that keeps the pile together will work. Bigger piles work better (faster) but smaller will work too. You don't even need a bin, you can literally make a pile on the ground - it's just harder to keep it neat and tidy.

You'll see the green bins in the background - they work quite well too.

You might want to watch some videos / read some blogs on hot vs cold composting.

20240106_102144.jpg

Edit: the one you linked is just to collect kitchen waste to be composted. You're not going to compost in that bin itself.
 
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From experience, you don't need anything but a pile of garden rubbish...

But if your garden is big you need to be picky about what you put in the composting bin/pile otherwise it gets out of control very quickly and then costs a fortune to get rid of.
 
ToxicBunny said:
From experience, you don't need anything but a pile of garden rubbish...

But if your garden is big you need to be picky about what you put in the composting bin/pile otherwise it gets out of control very quickly and then costs a fortune to get rid of.
Click to expand...
Yeah I found a massive thing built out of pallets and bunch of junk stinking garden junk. Didn't know if they tried to make a composting heap, a junk bin or a garden. Took the thing apart as it was stinking.

Will use the wood to build some raised beds for veggies.
 
hmmm. I have a ok sized yard but I dont want to make a pile. I like it neat
 
RedViking said:
Yeah I found a massive thing built out of pallets and bunch of junk stinking garden junk. Didn't know if they tried to make a composting heap, a junk bin or a garden. Took the thing apart as it was stinking.

Will use the wood to build some raised beds for veggies.
Click to expand...
Compost shouldn't stink. It has an earthy, sweet smell. If it stank they were doing something very wrong.
 
ToxicBunny said:
From experience, you don't need anything but a pile of garden rubbish...

But if your garden is big you need to be picky about what you put in the composting bin/pile otherwise it gets out of control very quickly and then costs a fortune to get rid of.
Click to expand...
Why are you paying to get rid of it? I've got a big garden, and all the garden waste goes to compost. It's very, very easy to use it all in the garden - just the lawns can take a good couple of m3 at a time.
 
Harmonic said:
Google bokashi. Really really easy to get started
Click to expand...
I have two bokashi bins. Throw in all our vegetable scraps basically. It has completely changed my garden in terms of how rich and good the soil is. I don't bother extracting the tea or anything these days, I just chuck it all in the hole and where I used to have hard barren soil with a thin layer of top soil and almost zero earthworms I now have rich fertile soil with a lot of earthworms. Also I keep getting to harvest stuff from plants a technically did not plant as gem, butternut, and tomato seeds often sprout where I berried it! Eating some really good gems and butternut right now that originated from Bokashi.
 
It also depends on what you want to compost. If only kitchen scraps then bokashi or vermicomposting are good options. If it's garden refuse, then normal composting is the way to go
 
Speedster said:
Why are you paying to get rid of it? I've got a big garden, and all the garden waste goes to compost. It's very, very easy to use it all in the garden - just the lawns can take a good couple of m3 at a time.
Click to expand...
When you end up with 4 truckloads of the stuff in the corner of the garden because of an over eager gardener and me not paying attention, that's when you have to get rid of a lot of it.
 
Goes without saying but make sure your gardener does not dispose of dogsh!t in the composters
 
ToxicBunny said:
When you end up with 4 truckloads of the stuff in the corner of the garden because of an over eager gardener and me not paying attention, that's when you have to get rid of a lot of it.
Click to expand...
I hear you. Had a gardener who was eager about cleaning out the garden (good thing) which all went to compost. He never used any of the compost though so it just became this huge mess. Decided to take a couple of days over December to sort it out. I built a couple of proper bins out of panel wood and old offcuts. The new gardener worked about a cubic metre of compost into some of the beddings last week. Everything that remains now fits into the new bins.

I've started sifting the old compost and will be using it at lawn dressing. I'll need at least one cube per 100m2 just for the lawn, so it'll go pretty quickly.
 
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RiaX said:
So I've been doing some research on this and basically you need a few things:

Air
Water
Carbon (brown)
Nitrogen (green)
and a starter which can be compost or plain old soil or a fancy compost starter.
Lots of mixing


Was looking at something like this:

Takealot.com: Online Shopping | SA's leading online store

South Africa's leading online store. Fast, reliable delivery to your door. Many ways to pay. Shop anything you can imagine: TVs, laptops, cellphones, kitchen appliances, toys, books, beauty & more. Shop the mobile app anytime, anywhere.
www.takealot.com www.takealot.com

But I have no idea how it works or if this is the correct product. What you guys use to make your own compost. Im looking for a very small scale version that does not smell. Any tips and tricks ?
Click to expand...

Do you have a garden or veggie patch that you will be composting for ? That small is a waist of time tbh. A long time for not much compost. And it WILL stink up your kitchen.

City of Cape Town gave away free bins for your yard... big boy about the size of the old black bins.

Kitchen scraps go in there along with egg cartons and yard and driveway sweep up. I mix once a week. Also threw some earth worms in it.

If u have space... and chickens... google chicken tractor on sterioids
 
Hmmm I got an ok space. But I don't want the smell
 
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