Compost warming up as weather worsens...


Cleo assumed this position at the allotment gate the second we arrived: none of her usual sniffing around. Hates bad weather, that dog. So I didn't hang around. There was a new bag from the florist, approx 10kg of green material. I dumped that by the heap, not taking the time to turn it over and mix in the new stuff. There was also a large amount of kitchen waste - a bag of split peas past their sell-by date, and a bag of frozen peas which had been pressed into service as a cold compress, plus the usual teabags and turnip peelings.

But the headline news is in the photo below: ambient temperature 3C, (on a thermometer nearby) and the compost thermometer showing 15C.


Still a long way to go: I've read that with regular turning a heap can get to 50 or 60C, (though I've never seen that myself), so maybe it's on the way. I was turning it every other day, but this week have left it alone since Tuesday. I'll turn it again with the new material over the weekend.

The ideal situation will be that it warms up to 40C+, and stays that way over winter providing a small local microclimate for various wildlife, (near the pond, incidentally), and breaking down at such a rate that it remains at a manageable size as approximately 10kg of material per week is added. It could be like a volcanic vent in the deep ocean of an allotment winter. Or something.

I say 'approximately... per week', I have only just started keeping a record of when I get bags of florist offcuts and guinea pig litter; and I'm estimating the 10kg too - casual work at a Royal Mail sorting office years ago has made me aware of what a 20lb/10kg mail bag feels like.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Leech or flatworm? Ants and Swiss Chard

Image
For the 2nd time in a week or so, (1st time regarding dwarf beans ), I'm following Alys Fowler's advice, this time with regard to Swiss chard .  Long story short, after midsummer plants which often bolt if planted in spring will resist the impulse to do so, probably because of shortening days; (I say shortening, but in Glasgow, in July, we're still getting 18 hours of daylight).   I got a packet of Bright Lights , at a good price, (another reason to wait until July before sowing, lots of bargains, I've noticed). But where to sow them? Most of the 2nd bed is under a tarpaulin, but it wasn't quite big enough to cover the whole bed, so the last 5ft or so went under a sheet of plastic, (in the background of the photo in this post, here .) Transparent plastic was a foolish idea, weeds were growing underneath it, so I covered most of it with sheets of metal from the old shed. I decided to leave the tarp, but use the area beneath the plastic for the chard. Who-ah there...
Read more

"Chevy Chase. Fuck ever happen to him?"

Image
As Paulie Walnuts said in The Sopranos. It got me thinking. As it happens, he's been working steadily , but you can see what Paulie means. It's like that with film and television actors: you don't see them in anything for a year or two, and you wonder if they're dead or perhaps on a lengthy charlie and booze session. Or maybe doing proper acting on the stage? Only appearing on the telly gives them meaning to us. That video with Paul Simon was on one of the cable music channels the other day. It always makes me smile. As for Paulie and the rest of the crew, the clock's ticking. Of course, America already knows how things finish, but we don't. My mate Ian was telling me about a friend of his, visiting the States a few weeks ago, flicking through the channels in his hotel bedroom, he hit on a repeat of THE final episode, just beginning. What a quandry! He watched it, as it goes, but kept shtum when he came home.
Read more

How many pallets can you fit in the back of a Fiat 500?

Image
At least 1. Maybe I could have got 3 altogether, at a pinch. Also 200+ gorse seeds, which have begun to look in danger of damping off, so I'm thinking they'll be better off at the allotment in the fresh air. I'm worried about slugs, snails and woodpigeons, though, so I put them in a wheelbarrow, covered with a net. Also this morning, planted a row of beetroot detroit.
Read more