Workshop: hot composting (via Blue Mountains Organic Community Gardens)

And here’s one I made earlier….

The compost must get hot, and stay hot for at least a couple of weeks. How high, how hot, how do I do that? My slideshow shows you the theory. Gain the confidence only a hands on practical workshop can give on Saturday 8th May. Got questions? fire away… For more details call Kat 0424 563 654. This is a hands on compost making workshop, be prepared to roll your sleeves up! See our calendar for more upcoming events and workshops. it’s getting hot … Read More

via Blue Mountains Organic Community Gardens

Deep Green Compost

Angelo and I share a love of hot composting, its simply the fastest way to get organisms working for you in your soil. He’s provided a full set of instructions to get the best compost out. Get out there and get composting!

http://deepgreenpermaculture.wordpress.com/diy-instructions/hot-compost-composting-in-18-days/

Where’d that big pile of compost come from?

Well before our intrepid heroes return, I figured I better explain the big pile of compost in their garden and how it got there. What pile?

All that grass that was cut before we arrived. but near the house it was already growing back. Its good to gather it in one spot if the mower is not a mulching mower, but since that wasn’t the case, all the better for some raking exercise.

We raked quite a bit of it, dry stuff and freshly cut material, but there’s still lots more out there, and that stuff, as we all know, grows FAST!

To the newly mown grass we added newly weeded weeds from the surrounding area.
(Matt getting ready to waste the weeds)
Then the fun part; alternate layers of nitrogen rich and dead, brown carbon material, and we soon had a healthy looking pile.

No thermometer to prove it, but I can confirm it was getting hot enough for some steamy microbe orgy action by the next day. As for the path, I laid down card and paper to stop weeds growing back, and piled up with the excess dry grass we gathered which we didn’t add to the compost pile. Eh viola!

Hopefully the card and paper has stopped the weeds from coming back, and you can walk down beside the veggie patch to the compost pile and onward to the tomatoes and other treats growing there. A little work was done inside that veggie patch too for soil preparation, but that’s another story!