Composting year. 1st December and the Reception bin is overfilled. Annual flowers (with masses of soil on the roots) peppers, brassicas and one long sunflower stalk. I managed to cut and layer about half of this lot on the day. The rest will have to be left until next week. This lot will be composted over the winter.

Pumpkins from our pumpkin smash after  to 4 days in the Green Johanna showing  how they can be composted in a  home composting bin . The Johanna will compost garden waste, and both cooked and uncooked kitchen waste/food so is a useffull choice for the pumpkins.   The pumpkins contain a lot of moisture (having been left outdoors  in the rain for a week so woodchip was added as an additional brown and bulking agent to provide air spaces. Some coffee was also added as we have a constant supply  and it is a dry green.   During the  "4 day"   turning there was  a sightly unpleasant smell but this was not detectable after aeration and the addition of shredded paper and a bit more woodchip. The pallet bins that we were also using  had more pumpkin, being a larger bins,  and a  greater  smell when turned. The photo shows the contents after being aerated. More details on the www.carryoncomposting.com pumpkin smash page

Pumpkin Smash and composting. The pallet bins to which some of the smashed pumpkins were added 4 days ago have been  turned. They where quite wet as the lumps of pumpkin started decomposing. Some smell. Turning the bin into the next in line helps to break up the lumps and the addition of wood chip acted as a bulking agent. Shredded paper also added to reduce the numbers of white fly. The photo shows most of the material before being  transfered from one bin to the next. More information on the www.carryoncomposting.com pumpkin smash page

This week we held our Pumpkin Smash so we have a lot of pumpkins to compost.  In addition from the allotment plots we have had a lot of annual weeds left  in the Reception bin. Most of these are relatively young and tender so they  will be broken down quickly. They provide a good green layer to share across several of our pallet bins. We do not have much in the way of browns  accessible in the reception bin without removing the weeds so we are using autumn leaves supplemented with some shredded paper.  The bins are being topped  with a layer of woodchip  as the pumpkins had attracted quite a lot of small flies while waiting to be composted.  There are small brassica plant under the weeds in the bin so that gives us something to look forward to.