I'm quite passionate about my compost. It's a simple system, 2 permanent cages with galv across the front, and everything goes on in layers. At the end of Summer, I empty them. The dry stuff around the edges forms the base of the new pile. Water is key, it must be slightly moist so in Summer I occasionally tip my greywater water onto the pile to keep it cooking. Dry compost is useless. I layer with weeds and lawn clippings - this is the green layer, and leaves, paper, straw, poo - this forms a brown layer. I try to do one brown followed by one green, but it never works out that way in reality. I have a few favourite spots where I go to get autumn leaves each year, and friends give me their lawn clippings sometimes. The pictures are of a temporoary one I built as I needed compost in another part of the garden. It's not terribly attractive, but it's working well.
- This is the start of a new pile. I needed the compost in this garden bed so that's where I put the cage. The tomato stakes weren't really strong enough so it sagged terribly, but still worked well.
- This is what it currently looks like, I've run out of leaves and grass clippings so it probably won't get much higher than this. Doesn't look like much - looks dry and unattractive.
- But once you scrape away the top layer, it's actually beautiful compost, full of worms and moist and friable. Good enough to eat!
