Burning Garden Rubbish

3 Apr '05 3:11 am

Moosey - I was wondering why you burn so much garden rubbish instead of shredding/mulching it and turning it into compost? I admit to being something of a compost fanatic, but all that plant material going up in smoke seemed a bit of a shame. I'm sure you use the ash on the garden, and I'm sure you make compost as well, but I find I can never make enough compost for all the gardens I want to use it on. Almost anything that stands still at my place gets composted!

3 Apr '05 4:41 pm

I admit I never compost.

I pulled out all my corn the other day - its sitting on the huge rubbish heap that'll go up in smoke soon.

Weeded the garden today and there is more rubbish to be burtn, so if you're lookin for more materal there is plenty here if you're in quick Wink

3 Apr '05 7:02 pm

Rebekah - with the wind we had today I could have nearly landed on your corn heap and brought the topsoil from a few million hectares with me. Hopefully we'll get some decent rain tonight and tomorrow to at least wash the dust out of the air.

I guess if your soil is good enough, there's no need to add compost. Do you add fertiliser of any sort to the soil. I seem to remember the Canterbury Plains as being a wonderful agricultural area so your garden is probably the same.

Happy Gardening.

3 Apr '05 11:05 pm

Hello and welcome to the forum, Alice.

I asked Moosey to write an article about her composting habits this time last year and this is what she came up with... Compost article Laughing

Our borough council are promoting composting to reduce waste. They are giving away composting sets for £10 - bargain. Only problem is that we don't actually have a garden. New person has moved in downstairs tho, so I will suggest a shared bin.

Starbucks give away bags of used coffee grinds in their stores - apparently very good for compost. (Also a sneaky way to make a corporate look caring Wink

)

My main concern about having a compost bin is attracting rats (London also has its fair share of those - 3 for every person living here Shocked

) How do you keep them away? Some say don't put cooked food in there.

What are your top tips for composting, Alice?

4 Apr '05 9:33 am

Thank you, Bex, for your reply. My first tip on Composting would be to forget about bins. We have a compost tumbler which is vermin proof but I've never made good compost from it. As for the bins that sit on the ground, so far as I can see all they are good for is storing material and encouraging vermin. The material never seems to break down.

I find a far better method is to make a compost heap, either within an enclosed area or just out in the open. The absolute necessities for breaking down plant material quickly are air and moisture, without either the material will take months to decompose, if at all.

In order to kill the seeds of any unwanted plants you need to compost them at a temperature of around 60C. The smaller you can shred the material, eg, through a mulcher or run over it with the lawnmower, the faster it will heat up and the bacteria will work. I find bins are ineffective as you cannot raise the temperature sufficiently.

Make a heap about a cubic metre in size, with different materials, eg. green material - grass, green leaves, kitchen scraps (not meat, fat, bones, or dairy products but all fruit, vegetables, bread, etc.) - they rarely smell when thrown out, but if they do then just cover them with some of the previous compost material.etc) in layers between dry material - dead leaves, chopped bark, shredded newspapers, egg cartons, straw, etc, - sprinkling each layer with Blood and Bone or some sort of manure and then thoroughly damping down. It will begin heating up in a matter of hours. If you can turn all the material over at least every couple of weeks, you should have good compost in the warmer months within four -six weeks, and about twice that long in the cooler months.

The compost is ready when it has cooled down (it should initially get hot enough so that you can barely keep an ungloved hand in it) and most of the material has broken down. The longer you leave it, the more like soil it will become but you can use it once it has cooled.

Ideally, compost heaps should be built directly onto the ground so the worms can escape during the days that the heap is too hot for them - they will return and have a real picnic as it cools down. My husband actually cemented the floor of our two bricked bins years ago so I usually leave a 5cm layer of compost on the floor before I begin refilling it.

Even in a small garden there can usually be room for a heap of a cubic metre. If it's smaller than that it will be difficult to create the necessary heat.

We never have rats in our compost heaps and seldom have mice either as it's too hot for them. Very occasionally there maybe a couple of field mice in a corner which may not have broken down so well. My daughter has four bins on the ground and she won't go near them because of the mice.

Compost making is a bit of 'trial and error' but so worthwhile when you get it right.

I'm absolutely passionate about making and using compost. I'm constantly astonished that so much plant material can turn into such wonderful fertiliser and soil conditioner in such a short time.

A really good book on composting is "Resurrection in a Bucket" by Margaret Simons. Pub. by Allen & Unwin.

4 Apr '05 10:17 am

Words of wisdom indeed. Thank you! I'll show your post to him-downstairs-with-garden and see if he's interested... Wink

4 Apr '05 2:11 pm

Alice, the burning question (ha!) is a very good one. The stuff that I am always having to burn is from Eucalyptus trees - leaves, bark, small branches. It's all windfall stuff and all extremely dry. I've had no success getting the gum leaves to 'break down' (I read somewhere it takes seven years).

Then I get lazy and burn prunings of shrubs, but what I prefer to do with them is get the shredder from next door and end up with mulch.

Flax leaves are difficult alo to 'get rid of'. Shredders can't shred them (the shredder breaks). For example, local city rubbish places won't accept flax leaves in 'green waste'. So my old flax leaves get burnt as well.

And apart from the above excuses I am not a good organiser of compost. Something to try and do better, I reckon!
Cheers

4 Apr '05 7:04 pm

Moosey - I can quite see why you would burn that material rather attempt the thankless job of trying to mulch it. Let's face it, sometimes you have to work out where your time and energies are better spent, and I'm sure you have plenty of other things to do. Who could resist the smell of burning gum leaves anyway, and as for trying to mulch flax leaves (and I understand you have a great many), well don't even think of it. I either wrap them in handfuls of other plant material before mulching or else chop them up with the secateurs - only viable if you have just a few.

I love reading about your garden. Are you battling drought like many of us in Oz, or has the rain been fairly consistent? I often think I'd love to move to Tasmania or somewhere wetter than Canberra, but then I don't want to leave my garden even though it's not finished and never will be. After all, who wants a finished garden !!!

8 Apr '05 8:47 am

Hi Alice,
On the Canterbury plains we are prone to drought every year. We have to irrigate in order to have an ornamental garden. It's not only the lack of summer rain, but the hot dry norwest winds which 'do' the damage. Gardening here is a compromise between what would have grown easily (grasses, and scrub) and what I want to grow (hee hee! Where shall I start?)

Regards using the waste leaves etc. I do tie bundles of old cordyline leaves together - they make brilliant kindling for the indoor wood burner. We are starting to have fires in the house in the evenings - there's a definite 'nip' in the evening air!

Do you get any winter frosts? Hmm.... they are the next item on the agenda here! At the moment I just can't imagine a frost - like I have to look at old photographs to be reminded. Hmm.... just wait!

Cheers, must stop talking and go outside. I am digging etc. another garden extension. The soil is brilliant, fertile and wormy. Also there is lot of sorrel weed present in the paddock grass. EEk!

8 Apr '05 10:07 am

Hi Moosey
I had to smile when you asked "Do you get frosts?". Most Australians who don't live in Canberra have the opinion "Who on earth would live there? It's soooo cold in the winter with all those frosts." We average about 30-40 frosts per year, sometimes going as low as -8 degrees, but mostly a few degrees warmer than that.

However, the other side of the coin is that the frost has usually melted by 9.30am and we get beautifully clear sunny days. If you start the day at minus 5 and then have a max. of 13 degrees, you actually feel the warmth of an 18 degree range. Very occasionally we will have a fog on top of the frost, and then it's really cold, but mostly it's clear blue sky and sunshine, so one can always find things to do in the garden on a day like that. Unfortunately, frosts are also very drying; the last thing we want at the moment.

I was amazed when I went to England and found that the frosts can last for days without melting. The frost crystals can hang from the trees like silver decorations. Very pretty (and very cold).

Your soil sounds wonderful. I'd love to come and play in it!

Happy gardening.

Burning Garden Rubbish

Burning Garden Rubbish

Compost

Compost in Moosey's garden

Composting

Composting

Compost - a Burning Question

FROSTS !