Tag Archives: Composting

HOTBIN owner Clare has a smallholding with 50 chickens, 6 alpacas and is now about to open a cattery (www.clarescattery.co.uk).  Following her success with her first two HOTBIN compost bins, she has asked us a number of “smelly based” questions over the past couple of months, the latest of which is ...

Waldringfield Community Composting scheme is successfully diverting food waste from landfill.  Last weekend we visited our friends at Waldringfield Community Composting to look at the results of the first 3 months of the HOTBIN use. Everyone was keen to learn how much food waste the 12 households had actually diverted from landfill. The results ...

To get fast superb results when composting grass lawn mowings in the HOTBIN:  Add 40 parts grass with 20 parts shredded paper and 1 part wood chip (bulking agent) Typically this is a medium sized lawn mower collection box (40 litres) with a full carrier bag of shredded paper (20 ...

YES YOU CAN COMPOST IT. BUT!! Problems will arise if the heap does not get above 40C – the seeds will survive cold composting and you will spread the seeds when the compost is used. A hot compost heap (40-60C) will kill the seeds. However as this is such an ...

Compost from you compost heap, compost bin and indeed your HOTBIN composter can vary an awful lot. With many HOTBIN® composters coming up to their first autumn, there will be a lot of hot compost being taken out and used in the garden. We thought it would be good idea ...

A QUESTION WE OFTEN GET ASKED IS; DO I NEED TO KEEP MY WORMERY NOW I HAVE A HOTBIN? The simple answer is no and the key benefit is that the HOTBIN can compost both food waste and garden waste. Therefore you can save space, reduce costs and still keep ...

The quick answer is “Get your waste hot (>40C) as quickly as possible” Flies and maggots in the HotBin are a real rarity. They can occur and it tends to be when the HotBin is in the ‘set up’ phase before the temperature has risen above 40C. Below we explain ...

LEAVES CAN GO IN THE HOTBIN AND THEY MAKE GREAT HUMUS. If you have a lot of leaves (>10 litres, a bucket load), you need to tweak the recipe to ensure they HOT compost. If you only add thick layers of leaves into the HOTBIN, it is unlikely they will ...

A number of composting advice sites indicate cigarette filters are made from synthetic plastics and do not decompose! We disagree – controlled hot Composting of cigarette butts is viable. Please read on to find out why!  Whether a material IS or IS NOT compostable (i.e. biodegradable) is a matter of ...

The Compost Woman, who knows an awful lot about composting, reviews the HOTBIN! And I’m pleased to announce she has had a text book start as she has already reached 60C! http://www.the-compostbin.com/2012/07/hotbin-trial-day-1.html She started with an very full HOTBIN having plenty of material available for her base layer.