Power of Yuk! Diary of a compost heap - week 2

You might have seen my post last week about my motivations for making an effort to compost more (https://hive.blog/gardening/@scalextrix/the-power-of-yuk). Its great for the garden, for waste reduction and the environment in general, and (if you are a bit strange like me) interesting to see how it all works.

This week we had a new rug delivered for our living room, we don't swap stuff like this often, but there is only so much food and red wine a rug can take before it needs pensioning off; life is messy, so the saying goes. Anyway, the rug came with a really solid bonded card tube at its centre, but no need to put it kerbside, compost ho!

^ The tube cut into bits, I also crushed them with a hammer to let the little critters in

I reckon these will take a long time to decompose, but they will absorb excess moisture from the kitchen waste and allow air into the heap which is important for aerobic decomposition. They also are a good dose of carbon in what can otherwise be quite nitrogen rich ingredients.

In terms of progress on decomposition at the base of the heap, this is last week:

And this morning we can see a lot more brown and unrecognizable materials:

A few grapes seem to be hanging in for the long haul, I would not have imagined they would be around for so long, but I'm sure nature knows what its doing!

Ill post each week so you can see how its coming along, have you started composting yet?