Hello and welcome to The Compost Bin. I'm Compostwoman and I live with my family in rural Herefordshire. We have nearly four acres of garden and woodland, all managed organically and to Permaculture principles, which we share with Chickens, Cats and assorted wildlife. We also grow a lot of our own food, run courses in all sorts of things and make a lot of compost!

I am a Master Composter and have spent more than a decade as a volunteer Community Compost adviser with Garden Organic and my local Council.
I'm a self employed Environmental Educator so I run workshops and events where I talk about compost, veg growing, chicken keeping, cooking, preserving and sustainable living. I also run crafts workshops and Forest School/outdoor play sessions in our wood.

We try to live a more self sufficient lifestyle here, as best we can, while still having a comfortable life and lots of fun.


To learn more about us click on the About Compostwoman tab and remember to click on the photos to make them full size!


Saturday 9 February 2013

Hotbin - over winter update.



I have not used my HotBin much over the winter - I have been feeding my wormeries with the household stuff and the chicken stuff has mainly gone into the outside compost bins to keep then going - but the HotBin will be back in full action asap once the grass mowing and weeding starts.

 Having said that, I have been putting enough waste in the Hot Bin to keep it ticking over and I have found that the contents stayed consistantly 10 - 15 C hotter than ambient, even though not especially very biologically active - I have seen temperatures inside of around 15 - 20 C rather than the extreme 65 C plus when the HotBin is working at maximum effect. 


I have also noticed that a lot of compost worms have found their way into my HotBin and are happily helping to convert the material inside into compost - so I will have to make sure that I empty out the contents into another compost bin before I start refilling the Hot Bin with a lot of material - I don't want to cook my precious worms at 60 C plus!







I am very happy with my HotBin and if I lived in a small garden I would have no hesitation in getting one to eat most if not all of my waste rather than using a more conventional bin.. Even with the space I have here and lots of compost bins I find it invaluable to use the HotBin to rapidly compost down large volumes of green material so I can transfer a smaller volume into a compost bin.



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3 comments:

  1. Witch Hazel26 February 2014 at 16:13

    Sarah, how has your HotBin been? I was looking at them today, do you think they are worth the money?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Compostwoman26 February 2014 at 17:07

      Vey much so Hazel - they eat a huge volume of stuff ( esp grass!) and are great for any food scraps ( even a chicken carcase!)

      Delete
    2. Witch Hazel28 February 2014 at 17:17

      Thanks for taking the time to reply. Maybe I'll invest in one, it just seems like such a lot of money (relatively speaking). I think if our local council did not provide a food waste service, I'd definitely go ahead. I need to think about it for a bit longer :-)

      Delete

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