Composting/Mulching

Anything to to with the decay of material

Carazy Composting Method : No Turn, Turbo Charged, Self Aerated Hot Composting System

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If I never have to turn compost in my life again it will be a great thing.

(Help there’s too many words, take me to the video ! )

I put together my first ever small pile of compost a month ago, turned it once and realised I never want to waste time turning compost again, ever, if I could. Previously I’d only done Bokashi composting and had never really taken time to do a regular composting pile! At the same time I didn’t want to leave it for half a year to break down. After much research I mostly saw expensive ($300+ !) commercial bins or tumbler composting systems (which still require turning albeit much easier).

I hate inefficiency and there are enough mini projects to do in a garden without having to expend a huge amount of time and effort to move a pile of waste a few feet over just to ensure it gets air so it can decompose better. I spent countless hours investigating various methods and the no turn composting all involved letting the pile break down over 6-12 months. Sounds great but what if you want compost now? It basically came down to this

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Carazy Composting Method : No Turn, Self Aerated, Quick Hot Composting System – Part 2

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For those of you who’ve come late to the party here is part 1

Carazy Composting Method : No Turn, Turbo Charged, Self Aerated Hot Composting System

After building the self aerated composting bin the next stage was to fill it with organic matter.

I chopped up a whole heap of dry sugar cane mulch, leaves, horse manure and began to fill the bin to the top pausing every 15-20cm to give each layer a soaking with the hose.

When placing the material in there do not compact it. You want there to be small passages of air to allow the aerobic process to occur. The wetting process will make the material heavy and compact it to some extent. If you are putting small sticks or woody material, place the layers at various angles to each other to give more opportunities for air pockets to be created.

 

 

 

 

Given my one person household doesn’t turn over much in the way of compostable food waste, I had a chat with the owner of a local cafe and asked if I could get her food scraps and coffee grounds. She was happy to oblige so I bought a brand new black garbage bin and tied a laminated note to it specifying that it was for composting materials only and my contact details. So twice a week I get a phone call saying my compost is ready and I duck down to the cafe and grab my bin. I can’t believe how excited I am to be picking up someone else’s garbage!

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Carazy Composting Method : No Turn, Self Aerated, Quick Hot Composting System – Part 3 (Final results!)

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My apologies about the delay. I work on these projects alone so sometimes the videos I do take that little bit longer to be edited and uploaded. This time I’ve been downright neglectful!
A few people have been messaging me from different places around the world asking about the results, enough to make me realise that it would actually be quicker getting the video up rather than replying individually. See polite queries do work!

Part 1 of this series is here

I decided to open the compost bin up after 40 days. There was no reason for this figure other than it was a nice round number and I was in dire need of compost so that I could put in the remaining fruit trees.

 

 

 
This is just a reference pic showing how high the compost bin was filled. It’s almost to the top of the upright air pipe.

 
Here you can see the cross section of the outer skin with the layers of grass, leaves and sugar cane. It was pretty dry around the extremities, most likely due to absorption of moisture into the cardboard which would then evaporate out. There was a white fungal bloom all around the pile.

 

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