I tried composting once. The compost bed stayed hot for about 6 months but then it cooled off and I never could get the mix right to heat it back up. I am hoping to start some worm composting soon. We had a presentation on that at one of our goat camp outs and it was so interesting. I need to purchase the worms soon. I plan to start them in my herb garden and another set in a box under the sink.

I think composting is wonderful. I know it would do me and my garden some good and believe me my garden needs all the help it can get. If I ate weeds I would be doing great :laugh:

Lori

The compost tumblers are great, a friend has one and her compost is ready so much faster than mine.

I have quite a few compost bins/heaps, all for different things. I have one outside my back door for kitchen waste, this is one of the 'dalek' shaped plastic ones, and I have 2, one inside the other, which helps to insulate it. It naturally filled up with worms and slugs who do a lot of the composting work and seem to happily congregate in the gap between the 2 composters. This one rots down really quickly.

In the veg garden I have another couple of plastic compost bins which I put in any veggie waste such as spent tomato plants, outer leaves of cabbages, the haulms of potato plants etc. These take longer, 6 months or more depending on the weather.

Then I also have a couple of 'long-term' heaps built from wood, and lined with black weed fabric. Into those I put weed waste, such as dandelion and bindweed roots, and they're then covered over with more black weed fabric to block the light so that eventually the weed roots are killed off.
All of them benefit from the addition of shredded paper, coffee grounds and compost activator. Good compost activators include urine (nice, I know), chicken manure, bokashi bran, and commercially prepared powders.