Making compost, how long?

[Squared]

Hi chaps

I have a question which is simply how long until the food waste breaks down into the good stuff that I can use for planting?

A bit of background: Im am going to start growing stuff this year in a small container garden to begin me on a journey towards having to never buy veg from a retailer, I have began a small compost bin already. The bin is covered and I have added some pre-bought stuff I had in a bag (left over from when I did some turf laying) to get the magic science bit going. The bin contains kitchen peelings mostly and some tea bags, there is a good population of fruit flies in there at the mo.

Cheers in advance guys/gals.

[preppingsu]

The magic science stuff is actually the worms and warmth.

We've filled out buns with autumn garden waste, we add food waste via a bokashi bin system. We will add it to the garden next autumn.

We have 6 dalek bins and we do not have enough compost for the growing we do.

Each new bin needs to have some of the ready compost added as that contains the worms. These are not your ordinary garden worms.

If you want finer compost you will need to use a garden sieve to take out any lumpy bits.

[featherstick]

Loads of info on composting online.

http://www.homecomposting.org.uk/home-c ... ainmenu-26

Teabags don't compost too well, the tannin in the tea preserves them. They are best used as a long-term feed at the bottom of a hole when you are planting something for the long-term, like fruit trees.

[preppingsu]

Tea leaves are ok, the bags don't tend to decompose easily have they have a very thin plastic mesh in them. They are no longer just made from paper.

[preppingsu]

Find out if you have a local permaculture group in your area. Sometimes they have a composting master who will be able to offer you advice.

[grenfell]

Tea leaves are ok, the bags don't tend to decompose easily have they have a very thin plastic mesh in them. They are no longer just made from paper.

Yes that bit sort of irritates me , I know there's no real problem but I was forever picking out those little plastic mesh bags. Nowadays I tend to dry out the bags which make them easier and less messy to rip open.
Incidentally I had been tipping them all into a bucket and it started to look remarkably like potting compost and the thought occurred to me......potting compost. While pondering it that very idea came up on another forum i use . Someone else had the same thoughts and had actually tried it only to find the whole thing went mouldy very quickly .

[Catweazle]

A keen gardener I know collects vegetable scraps from the local café, they are happy to help. Potentially, there are many other sources now that pigs are no longer allowed to eat kitchen scraps, including school / works canteens and even supermarket bins.

Riding schools generate a lot of dung, but as with any manure you need to be careful as some chemicals used to control weeds on grassland can persist in the manure for some years. I had 40 tons of farmyard manure donated by a friendly local, but left it in a pile for 18 months to see what would grow on it before I dug it into my veg beds. If you don't want to put manure directly into your compost you will find that you can grow a huge crop of nettles on it, so add them instead.