• 0 Posts
  • 9 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 13th, 2023

help-circle

  • My mouth 😃

    Probably worth potting on once into a slightly bigger pot, the extra food should encourage some new leaf growth, but in my experience they flower and then senesce.

    Don’t split them, the added stress will encourage flowering.

    Might be a factor of living well north of the equator and shorter days (Scotland), but overwintering is not something that’s possible for us. It’s an annual plant: grow, flower, seed, die.

    Better to sow more seed or buy another supermarket pot and pot in on straight away so it never gets a chance to be stressed by lack of nutrients.





  • I’m assuming a worm farm is what we call a wormery in Britain. The main thing about wormeries and bokashi is they can take cooked food waste, that’s not usually advised for composting.

    So in part I think it depends what your source material will be.

    Our wormery can get a bit whiffy, though it’s not noticeable until you take the lid off to put more stuff in. Still, not sure I’d want it inside. Bokashi seems designed for indoors.


  • Every couple of weeks during the summer, once a month over the winter. Used to do it weekly, but decided I should probably let it heat up more between turns.

    I do it by getting a fork and properly turning and mixing it. Very physically demanding!

    I only really have the one 800 litre bin though. I think the let it sit strategy works better when you have 2 or more, just layer well and let nature do the mixing!


  • I can suggest an alternate use for the buckets with a lid. We do ‘roman composting’ with a couple. Put all the thing’s you don’t want in a compost heap - dandelion roots, grass roots, weeds with seeds on etc in the bucket then fill with rain water and leave it well alone, because it will really stink if you poke at it 😄

    You can pour liquid off to use as a feed, the solids should be well rotten after a few months and stop smelling so bad. I usually chuck them in my normal compost heap. But I guess you could try them as a dressing.


  • I live in Scotland, so no where near that cold or much snow. But making sure it’s got the minerals to keep microbial growth going should help it generate it’s own heat. We can buy a product called rock dust here, it’s ground up volcanic basalt - side product of quarrying - wide range of minerals in it. Mixing some through before covering it should help.

    Another thing that gets it cooking is wood ash, needs to be a pure wood fire obviously. You can also go the extra step and make biochar to mix in - you’ll get some ash with that anyway.

    If you live near the coast a bit seaweed is a good addition too.

    I try to turn my own compost regularly and it’s gratifying to see the steam rising on a cold day 😁