I guess I am lucky to have 3 compost heaps and have had the ‘fun’ of emptying one over the last 3 days.  It would probably have been better compost if it had been left a few more months but the other 2 were full or filling up rapidly. I wanted to trench out the bean and sweet pea ground both of which should benefit from the moist compost at their roots. Another reason for action was created by corona virus and the cessation of garden refuse collections and closure of local refuse tips by our MDC.

So what of rotten rotters or poor composters that I unearthed this morning.

Inert Items

1. Not surprisingly plastics did badly, as, despite my efforts a clothes peg, several plant labels from garden centers and my own written identifiers had got into the bin. Other plastics including starch magazine wrappers, and stickers from exotic fruit that were discovered not yet if ever broken down.
2. Every year I find at least one missing tool that I had probably spent an age looking for. Last year it was a precious Falco secateur that turned up with a bit of damage the month after I had bought a new one.
3. The surprise of the day was 3 spectacle lenses and one arm. It beggars belief but perhaps I couldn’t see them when they fell in to the compostable clippings.
4. The bin I emptied must have stood on soil where an old bird feeder had existed. The metal spike stabliser was now dug out with the compost. There was no more metal this time.

Natural Material

1. It may be due to my impatience but Avocados give me the pip or should that be the nut. Whatever you call it the kernal takes more than a year before it cleaves into 2 unrotted hard pieces. The skin also fails to rot as quickly as all my other kitchen waste. They were nearly ready to go this time so I let them be.
2. Moss lies dormant and will not rot. Short of burying it I must be dissuaded from putting the lawn grass mossy rakings from a wet winter in the now empty bin.
3. I dug up an old tree stump but that won’t rot down in my lifetime so I may invert it and make a stumpery. Other thick woody lumps are not destined for my compost heaps.

Home made compost sieve to remove rotten rotters