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Success!! I made my pallet compost bins (minus one pallet). The one in the middle should slide out to allow us to transfer compost from side one to side two. Made from heat-treated pallets collected for free, some pieces of wood from a disintegrating picnic table the last owners left, some buckthorn sticks, and a handful of screws from a box of 500 I bought several years ago, knowing I'd eventually find uses for them.
Here's the bin a few hours later filled with apple leaves, some failed mushroom buckets, and a little fertilizer because I don't have much green to put in it.
Waiting to go get the motherload of leaves from my friend across town.
Does anyone know how well fertilizer works to make a hot pile?
#compost #allotment #gardening
@MCDuncanLab @laurenheywood I'd avoid fertilizer. If you don't have enough green material (grass clippings etc) maybe a small amount of all nitrogen fertilizer.
Yeah, it's fall, no greens. Or certainly not enough to counterbalance the massive influx of leaves coming in the next couple of weeks.
@MCDuncanLab well even cold composting will give you great leaf mold next year. Great mulch as is or you can add green next yr.
True, but some of what I'd like to compost would benefit from hot to kill seeds.
@MCDuncanLab I understand. I'd look for a 30-0-0 fertilizer (use sparingly on a regular basis, say when you turn the pile) or better yet a slow release one that is high in nitrogen. Good luck. Feed the soil.
@MCDuncanLab you could also try the technique they use for straw bale gardening. Look up the info on conditioning a bale online and adapt to your pile. That should get the party started.