What’s in the leachate.

[CompostSoup]

I’ve had my bin running for 8 days now and despite the cold it got up to 50c pretty quick.

so now I’m starting to think about harvesting the liquor regularly as prescribed.

So far I haven’t found anything specific about the chemical constituents of the leachate other than a very broad statement about high in NPK.

has anyone got any insight or has anyone tested the leachate to find out NPK amounts and pH.

I know exact figures will vary from bin to bin depending on what goes in. broadly speaking we are all putting in vegetable matter and other kitchen waste as well as shredded paper and woody bulking stuff.

I’ll probably end up collecting my leachate in a large bottle for a little while before I use it. Know the expected NPK and pH would be helpful to target use on specific plants. Is it more suited to Roses, or Camellias for example or is it good to feed fruiting plants or perhaps good for foliage.

maybe no one knows.

cheers.

stew

[HotBinDjinn]

I tried to test my leachate with a soil test kit. I'm sure it wasn't that accurate, but the result came out a hazy somewhere between 6.5 and 7.0. I would really want better equipment to test it. From what I understand the leachate contains low levels of NPK and also contains fulvic acid and humic acid. Humic acid improves soil health and fulvic acid help plants with nutrient uptake. There are some good soil science books out there for gardeners.

I only dilute my leachate if I need to spread it across a larger area. Normally I just dump it in the area I'm going to be planting veg and let it do its own thing. Its been great for the veg patch. This year I'm going to dump it on the apple trees as an experiment. Don't keep it in a bottle for too long, it will start to ferment or go bad.

[IBrown]

I’ve had my bin running for 8 days now and despite the cold it got up to 50c pretty quick.

so now I’m starting to think about harvesting the liquor regularly as prescribed.

So far I haven’t found anything specific about the chemical constituents of the leachate other than a very broad statement about high in NPK.

has anyone got any insight or has anyone tested the leachate to find out NPK amounts and pH.

I know exact figures will vary from bin to bin depending on what goes in. broadly speaking we are all putting in vegetable matter and other kitchen waste as well as shredded paper and woody bulking stuff.

I’ll probably end up collecting my leachate in a large bottle for a little while before I use it. Know the expected NPK and pH would be helpful to target use on specific plants. Is it more suited to Roses, or Camellias for example or is it good to feed fruiting plants or perhaps good for foliage.

maybe no one knows.

cheers.

stew

Mine is stuck rigidly between 15 and 25 degrees at the moment, I add food waste and shredded corrugated cardboard a couple of times a week and drain the leachate every time.

Not sure what else I can do. It’s been churning out too much leachate in the last week, I suspect partly because of the storms.

[Paul B]

I too am new to this as I am Hydroponic gardening. With that in mind I purchased a ph and ec meter, yesterday I put the tester into the leachate. Pure water = 0000, my rain water = 0034, my leachate = 1460. Sadly, that does not tell us what it’s made up of, but there’s something in it. I assume it would need to go for scientific analysis to be certain. As most of us will compost grass, fruit/ veg waste and peelings, weeds etc. Any result would apply to us all near enough.