Compost heaps-the ideal.

[scbk]

2 hours ago, peds said:

First pile of the new house set to cook. Kitchen scraps that aren't appropriate for chickens saved up in the dalek, and then when full to the brim, a pallet bin built around it, dalek lifted, then and filled and tossed about with seaweed, chicken litter floor scrapings, comfrey, and nettle. Left under the rain for two days, then a lid of cardboard and plastic bags. 

Probably leave it cooking until Christmas or so. 

Comfrey, nettle and seaweed seems to good to go on compost, that would be good for a liquid fertiliser!

[NJA]

3 hours ago, peds said:

First pile of the new house set to cook. Kitchen scraps that aren't appropriate for chickens saved up in the dalek, and then when full to the brim, a pallet bin built around it, dalek lifted, then and filled and tossed about with seaweed, chicken litter floor scrapings, comfrey, and nettle. Left under the rain for two days, then a lid of cardboard and plastic bags. 

Probably leave it cooking until Christmas or so. 

 

What's 4" pipe for? Keeping it moist?  

My pile is going ok but not much heat, and dries out.  Do I give it a good soaking then cover with black plastic?

[peds]

25 minutes ago, scbk said:

Comfrey, nettle and seaweed seems to good to go on compost, that would be good for a liquid fertiliser!

 

Seaweed isn't exactly rare for me, I throw it into and under everything. I collect it in 70 litre bags after storm surges, it gathers nice and neatly at the top of any number of nearby beaches, depending on the direction it was coming from. Lovely smelly stuff, the stinkier the better.

 

But yes, you are absolutely right, and I have an IBC and two 200 litre barrels set aside especially for brewing tea in.  Empty at the moment, I'm still waiting to get my tunnels built here at the new house...

[peds]

6 minutes ago, NJA said:

What's 4" pipe for? Keeping it moist?  

My pile is going ok but not much heat, and dries out.  Do I give it a good soaking then cover with black plastic?

 

You should absolutely give it a good soaking if it dries out, especially if it's well ventilated. A few days of rain is better than standing there with a hose, in my opinion.

Then yeah, a few sheets of cardboard for thermal insulation and extra housing/food for creepy crawlies, then compost bag plastic... black side up, to catch the sun. 

 

The 4" pipe is for ad-hoc addition of nitrogen supplements. About a pint each morning, and more in the evening if I've been drinking. 

[sime42]

14 minutes ago, peds said:

 

Seaweed isn't exactly rare for me, I throw it into and under everything. I collect it in 70 litre bags after storm surges, it gathers nice and neatly at the top of any number of nearby beaches, depending on the direction it was coming from. Lovely smelly stuff, the stinkier the better.

 

But yes, you are absolutely right, and I have an IBC and two 200 litre barrels set aside especially for brewing tea in.  Empty at the moment, I'm still waiting to get my tunnels built here at the new house...

 

Something I've always wondered about: what about the salt on or in seaweed? Do you have to rinse it before you use it?

[NJA]

3 hours ago, peds said:

 

You should absolutely give it a good soaking if it dries out, especially if it's well ventilated. A few days of rain is better than standing there with a hose, in my opinion.

Then yeah, a few sheets of cardboard for thermal insulation and extra housing/food for creepy crawlies, then compost bag plastic... black side up, to catch the sun. 

 

The 4" pipe is for ad-hoc addition of nitrogen supplements. About a pint each morning, and more in the evening if I've been drinking. 

Haha gotcha thanks😆😆

I haven't been covering it.  Will do with cardboard and plastic, got a load of dpm sheet left over which should be good

[peds]

3 hours ago, sime42 said:

 

Something I've always wondered about: what about the salt on or in seaweed? Do you have to rinse it before you use it?

 

It's absolutely something to be aware of, and I'm sure that if you were to continuously mulch the same spot year after year with copious quantity of it, you'd definitely see an increase in salt levels in the soil. Whether or not that increase is big enough to have any major effect on plant life there is another question, and probably very species dependent. But it certainly doesn't seem to have had much of a detrimental effect in places where they've been using seaweed as a fertiliser on a significant scale for hundreds, or even thousands of years...  the Channel Islands, here on the wesht coast of Ireland... possibly others... 

 

To be honest, it's not something I've ever lost any sleep over. Hope it's not one of those things that comes back and bites me in the ass in 40 years' time!

[sime42]

52 minutes ago, peds said:

 

It's absolutely something to be aware of, and I'm sure that if you were to continuously mulch the same spot year after year with copious quantity of it, you'd definitely see an increase in salt levels in the soil. Whether or not that increase is big enough to have any major effect on plant life there is another question, and probably very species dependent. But it certainly doesn't seem to have had much of a detrimental effect in places where they've been using seaweed as a fertiliser on a significant scale for hundreds, or even thousands of years...  the Channel Islands, here on the wesht coast of Ireland... possibly others... 

 

To be honest, it's not something I've ever lost any sleep over. Hope it's not one of those things that comes back and bites me in the ass in 40 years' time!

 

I seem to remember seeing it used on the fields in Brittany as well as a kid.

 

 

[scbk]

I filled a barrel with seaweed to make liquid fertiliser this year, I did rinse it first to hopefully remove some salt, don't know how necessary that was.

[peds]

19 minutes ago, sime42 said:

I seem to remember seeing it used on the fields in Brittany as well as a kid.

 

They're all at it, those Celts. 

 

There are remote islands up in the outermost Hebrides where it's literally the only significant quantity of organic material available, and I'd imagine they get more salt on the land after a single stormy day at sea than after a whole year of seaweed mulching.

 

Although, that could also explain the lack of other organic material available.