Monday 5 September 2016

Hot Composting Additions

We had a couple of days in Norfolk at the end of the week. It's what I think of as one of the drier areas of the country but on our visit it managed to rain.
RSPB Titchwell Marsh
On our visit to RSPB Titchwell Marsh on Friday the skies were rather threatening but we only had a little light rain late in the afternoon. It was a different story on Saturday as although we had a lovely sunny morning it didn't last and by mid afternoon it was pouring down.
Holt Station - North Norfolk Railway
You might remember I posted recently about trying out hot composting on the allotment. The heap consisted of chopped up twigs selected from the wood chippings delivered to the site. I thought that this heap might benefit from the addition of some green matter and as we are clearing away lots of spent summer crops there was plenty of material available. In keeping with the experiment all the green material was cut up into smaller pieces before adding to the heap.
Chopped Comfrey Leaves
So the hot composting heap has finished up consisting of the following:

5 barrowfulls of selected wood chippings
1/4 barrowfull of grass clippings
1/2 barrowfull of chopped comfrey leaves
1 barrowfull of chopped strawberry leaves
1 barrowfull of chopped tomato leaves

All the materials were given a good mixing. Although the heap is now pretty large it wasn't too difficult to mix at this stage.
The heap was then recovered with a piece of weed control fabric and will be left for a about a week before I give it another mixing.

4 comments:

  1. Glad you had a good weekend in Norfolk. I've been amazed in the past at the amount of heat generated by a pile of grass clippings, it really is surprising. I'm not usually organised enough to get a hot pile going though.

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    Replies
    1. I'm not sure I'm organised well enough either CJ but I'm giving it a go. I've noticed that when wood chippings are delivered by the lorry load to site they get warm enough to smoulder in the middle of the heap.

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  2. What a beautiful train view! Is it steam train?
    Doing compost need a lot of patient! ;)

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    Replies
    1. It is a steam train Malar. The carriages were restored at a cost of around half a million pounds and they let us have a ride in them!

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