Thursday 8th July 10

A kind of busy but nothingy day.... although lovely to be doing things in the garden and I did quite a bit of compost heap management including taking a very heavy solid pallet down the garden which will serve as a base for a Komp 700 hexagonal compost bin I've got, which I've recently emptied and removed the previous base, as it had been breached by a rodent and I don't welcome that.

I did some filling of a medium sized Compostumbler which is working very well... not the 14 days waste to compost as the company deceitfully boasts, but it is quick, and allows the wet stuff to rot down quickly and get hot before it is taken out after a month and allowed to sit and finish off for a year or two. The value of these tumblers is that the initial decomposition is very rapid indeed, reducing the bulk and preventing the problem of stuff getting compacted and anaerobic... in quickly built 'sit and wait' heaps, I occasionally find mummified oranges etc in layers where they have been compressed and the acidity has reduced the bacterial activity. Composting things in a tumbler first avoids this problem, as the pre-tumbled material rots very well once it has been placed in a maturation bay or dalek.

In the evening I cycled down to Bikerescue as I want to talk to Bernie about something, but she wasn't there so I left a message. Then I went on to the Millennium Bridge to meet up with Dave Broughton and others from Abundance, an 'al fresco' meeting. I was a bit early and spent a few minutes picking up litter left by picnickers or end of term revellers. Candy and Anna B turned up, and then Andy D'Agorne, and about half a dozen other people dropped by and chatted which was great! Enjoyed this social a lot.

Cycled home through Walmgate Stray and the University.

Tuesday 13th April 10

A meeting in town this morning and then put a cheque in, and then at 11ish over to Kate Lock's house with the apple tree I took out a couple of days ago. I was really glad that Kate wanted it, and it seems that Kate is really glad to have it.

I had a coffee and chat, then dug a hole for the tree, planted it, helped Kate riddle a load of compost in the Rotasieve I lent her yonks ago, had another coffee, and cycled back with the Rotaseive, via Country Fresh and then St Nicks, where I found out that I would be welcome to sort out their display compost bin a bit later in the day.

So, cycled home, lunched and at about 3pm, cycled back to St Nicks with the Country Fresh stuff and a sack of sawdust. I dug out the Komp compost bin out and cleaned the perspex panel, and refilled the bin with new material.... layers of fruit/veg and sawdust. I also 'seeded' the stuff with a few worms....

But, best of all, I took some photos with Gill's camera, see below!

This is the Komp as it looks in anybody's garden, apart from perhaps the brick base, but that's a rat-deterrent.

This is the way these bins are secured shut, with a plastic rod keeping the interlocking panels together.

The door open, revealing the perspex sheet and the internal 'workings' of a compost bin, with finished material at the base and fresher stuff on the top.

Here's the back panel removed and I'm digging out the contents.

The bin, emptied and washed down.

The bin being refilled with shop 'resources'.

Close-up of the layers of material newly put in.