Alastair Palmer

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since Jun 06, 2019
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Recent posts by Alastair Palmer

Thanks for the comments folks - I'll try adding a bunch of extra browns & see how I get on.

@Keith - I've been letting the sludge dry out by just dumping it on to an unused garden bed, but hadn't thought of sifting it. I'll try to give that a go next time I shuffle the bins round.
3 years ago
Hi folks,

I've been trying to get worm composting working for a while now, and haven't been that impressed by the output so far. I bought a multi-tier plastic bin system (about 18" square with 4 4" tiers) with drain holes at the bottom of each tier along with a pack of worms.

I've been feeding the top & draining the bottom & once the top tray gets full, emptying out the bottom. I've not been keeping records, but I think I swap round the tiers about once a month, so it'd be around 3 months of composting to get my end result. However, what I get out is not particularly impressive - it's a gooey sludge mess rather than the super-fine compost some folks seem to get (see pictures). As far as I can tell, there are plenty of worms, but they're not processing the kitchen waste very well.

Initially I was worried that it wasn't draining out the bottom well. There's a tap at the bottom to allow worm tea to be drained off & I left it open for a few months to see if that helped, but it didn't seem to make much difference.

Input is kitchen waste (including coffee grounds & tea). We're relatively careful with what waste goes in - e.g. no citrus - but I've not been adding much else. I tried adding torn-up newspaper, but that didn't seem to get broken down at all. Any thoughts on what the problem might be here? Happy to provide any more info if the above isn't enough!

Thanks,
Alastair
3 years ago
Thanks for the replies - we'll definitely be harvesting them earlier next year! Tried a few of the bulblet balls in a tomato sauce yesterday & it was delicious .
4 years ago
Hi,

After growing some hardneck garlic this year, I now have a whole load of garlic flowers (the little mini-bulblets). Does anyone have some tips on how I can use these? Can you just use them in place of garlic cloves? Do they need peeling? Seems a shame to let all that lovely garlicky-ness go to waste.

Thanks,
Alastair
4 years ago