Boo hoo – the last biodynamic Workshop for the season, and it rained – who would have thought, rain, here in Wanaka. Hot Compost was our topic this month and it wasn’t a huge turn out, possibly because of the rain, but between the 6 of us we made the sexiest hot compost mound ever. Crazy as this sounds we had a good time doing it.
For those of you who don’t know, Hot Compost is a layered compost, comprising of carbon rich materials e.g. leaves, hay, straw, or any brown vegetation, (paper and cardboard can also be used) and nitrogen rich materials, e.g. coffee grounds, lawn clippings, kitchen/garden waste, manure, or any green vegetation.
Once you have a reasonably good selection of both carbon and nitrogen rich materials you can start to make your compost. Your compost heap (when finished) should be 4-5 feet in diameter and the same high.
Layering the carbon and nitrogen materials will create a natural heating up type reaction which not only breaks down the goodies faster but also gets hot enough to kill any weed seeds or diseases.
Then within 6 months to a year your compost should be ready for use.
Oh yeah you will probably have to turn your heap at some stage. I’m not sure when – I may not have been listening then.
Last but not least – we were supposed to have a shared lunch today after the composting, unfortunately I got so wet and cold I had to go home to shower and change. That means I didn’t get to say Thank You to Su – your knowledge, enthusiasm and skill was an inspiration to us all. Also Thank You to everyone who came along and shared the last 6 months with us.
It’s been fabulous meeting you all and I hope we all stay in touch and continue to grow, both in knowledge and in produce. I look forward to another exciting adventure in Biodynamics, next spring.