Tweet
Hello, I've been composting for donkey's years with some success but have progressively found that too many garden weeds appear to originate from my tendency to try to compost too many undesirable plants and seeds. I had a bright idea in 2009 after a loft conversion project left some large rectangles of thick insulation, I would build a new compost heap container from it to ensure it kept hotter and all the heap got hot. It did work, put patchily, then fell apart after only a couple of years. I reverted to normal composting with a two-year three heap rotation that worked well but nothing like as well as I would have liked. I had lots of garden waste that ould be good for the soil but it just would not compost well. So I was interested to see the Hotbin advertised a few years back but was always put off by the price.
Finally, this year, I decided to buy as it seemed like this was a piece of kit that would produce good quality compost, produce more of it, kill off all the seeds, weeds and diseases, process most green and brown rubbish and, I was surprised to see, process food waste as well. I have a medium sized garden with a modest lawn, lots of shrubs and an annual leaf fall blowing in from the neighbouring park. We are just two generating a couple of caddies of vegetable waste a week.
After I ordered the 200 litre Mk 2 I decided I did not want to be reliant on buying wood chips so conserved all the autumn cuttings to use instead. I always mow the leaves with the grass at this time of year so hoped that would be green enough to work, if it is not I'll store the leaves and use as a bulking agent over the summer.
So when the Hotbin arrived I was ready to go in theory. As it January it was to be a stiff test!
I stacked it much as recommended, a base of chopped twigs then a mix of vegetable peelings and fruit skins, grass clippings, mown leaves, torn cardboard and using chopped honeysuckle stems, raspberry canes and thick-stemmed hedge cuttings to provide air spaces. I did not use the official woodchips.
I filled the hot water bottle, buried it half-way down in the middle and waited.
It took a couple of days to warm up to 20 degrees but was clearly simmering nicely. It then steadily worked its way up over another 4 days to a maximum of 40 degrees lid temperature at which point the interior reached 50 degrees, opening the lid let out a very satisfying cloud of warm steam.
As a living being I felt it needed a name, so christened it Uriah.
As the contents shrunk I progressively added more content of a similar composition, although the proportion of leaves was higher (50% of mowings) so I was concerned that the temperature would be much lower. Each time Uriah initially cooled by 10-20 degrees, but that was only to be expected as the new content was cold (about 5 degrees) so it needed time to warm up and be colonised by the composting bacteria.
In both top-ups the interior temperature reached over 40 degrees within a day or two. It is currently frosty -4 degrees outside and the lid temperature is 30 while the interior is 39 and rising. All very satisfying, especially as it is the coldest time of the year.