Spring compost production line

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Hello, and welcome.

[00:00:01]>> [sighs and gasps] >> I'm here today just to explain to you about the the compost I've made this year from March through to just a week ago.

[00:00:12]And it's all involving bracken. And I'm also going to present to you a paper on whether it's safe to use bracken. Not my work, but through Science Direct.

[00:00:26]There's plenty of papers that will allude to cancer risk according to uh the toxins within bracken.

[00:00:37]But reading through all the papers, it's in there the main risks are from the early growth the mid growth releasing uh spores.

[00:00:50]And it decreases wildly towards the end when I'm harvesting bracken.

[00:00:56]So, I'm harvesting bracken brown, and the risks are minimal. And what I'll do is I'll put the a link to the papers down below in the description or or somewhere.

[00:01:07]So, that you can actually see for yourself cuz it's always worth listening to to the intelligent people in this world rather than idiots like me because I know nothing.

[00:01:16]All I know is how to make compost. Well, that's no good if it's going to cause you health risks. Well, I feel that the risk is minimal.

[00:01:25]The science seems to indicate that the risk risk is minimal.

[00:01:30]And I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

[00:01:33]Okay, so the the first one is inside the Dalek. I did a video on this one. I actually start this one on the 11th of March.

[00:01:43]And this one will be nice and easy to reveal cuz we can just pull off the top. I've I've stored a couple bits of garbage on there.

[00:01:55]I'm at the moment feeding it with um just food scraps because there is worms in here. Well, let's keep them happy.

[00:02:03]The material is pretty damn good.

[00:02:07]I'm actually quite pleased with it.

[00:02:09]>> [snorts] >> The sweet corn stems, which are part of the material that I used, are there, but they're so far gone that I wouldn't bother to sieve them out.

[00:02:19]That will be just used as is at the moment.

[00:02:23]That will be used this year.

[00:02:26]>> [sighs] >> Pretty much finished.

[00:02:29]Um a little bit drier on the edges here.

[00:02:32]Possibly this could do with another turn. This has been treated with seaweed on a second phase of adding nutrition to the pile.

[00:02:41]So, the next one was started on the 20th of March with very moist uh grass that released a lot of moisture and took a little while to get going. I had a bit of trouble starting It's near on ready. It's been It had a maximum of 71° C.

[00:03:02]And it's near on ready for use.

[00:03:07]It has been improved with the addition of seaweed, which I believe is mostly gone. Let's have a quick look see if we can find any.

[00:03:17]Yeah, there's a little bit there.

[00:03:22]So, there's that's what remains of the seaweed that was 3 weeks ago.

[00:03:27]So, that is almost ready.

[00:03:31]I'll possibly give this one more turn just to get that seaweed mixed in because I want the the the nutrition released from the seaweed right through through the pile.

[00:03:43]That's not going to be done today.

[00:03:46]The actual material itself is very good. It's pretty fine.

[00:03:53]It is using sieve broken and grass.

[00:03:57]>> [snorts] >> And then the seaweed comes on to to actually add all the nutrients in it. Not part of the hot process, but just part of the process.

[00:04:13]Once again, just a little bit dry back here.

[00:04:17]So, it will only benefit my turn. And because there's rats around, it's always good to mix manure with the pile around because the rats >> [snorts] >> don't like the disturbance. And also, if there is a nest in there, I can destroy that with the matter.

[00:04:35]This pile was started on the 10th of April and it's just about finished.

[00:04:41]Nice sort of recycled material. This is from my stairs that was torn out.

[00:04:47]This is from a white goods delivery.

[00:04:52]So, we reuse much stuff as much as we can.

[00:04:55]Again, the rats have been in there.

[00:04:58]This started off right up here. So, it's it's gone down.

[00:05:02]This is unimproved. So, there's no nutritious material in there. It's just a mix of grass, bracken, and then a few weeds as well.

[00:05:17]So, what I would do with this pile is through the summer, all the good stuff like comfrey will be layered up through this this pile here and re-composted.

[00:05:31]Cuz this is all aimed at next year. This isn't looking at this year. This is all aimed at next year. And what this does is gives you a volume of material >> [sighs] >> that's all the goodness can soak into from the stuff like comfrey and any other leaves so that when it comes to actually using them as two in the autumn it should be very well composted down a week. But it's actually still up at 40 8°.

[00:06:03]So it's still cooking away rather nicely.

[00:06:12]The good thing about bracken is that it actually ends up very very close to a peat consistency once it's dried out.

[00:06:22]You won't see that until the autumn.

[00:06:24]Hopefully I can show you in the autumn what that looks like and it will look wonderful.

[00:06:29]I assure you.

[00:06:32]Sorry, my camera got bored of me and it decided to turn itself off.

[00:06:36]But as you can see there's some weeds and rough grass in the top of it.

[00:06:41]It's already well on the way. It's all limp and looking rather unpleasant.

[00:06:49]I'll actually wait two or three days and then I will turn it again and I will keep on adding to this pile for the next week or so because I want basically this one to be up up to the top and I want it to be finished. I want at least basically end up with a half bin and at the at the end of the hot process.

[00:07:12]So that when I add all the good materials in there'll be that volume of materials to capture it.

[00:07:21]I'll perhaps do a follow-up video when I get the material and it's all still growing.

[00:07:29]As you can see it's very hot.

[00:07:32]Wasn't a rush when I actually made this pile you see and I had a little spillage so I'll just put that on top now.

[00:07:43]It's good away.

[00:08:01]And I'm going to also add one more material at this phase because I am not afraid of adding garden weeds.

[00:08:13]Oop, that's got a bit of sawdust that I scrape up and browns and anything else that's in there. Sticky willy weeds and I wanted to show you one in particular. Come on, where is it?

[00:08:27]Is that it there?

[00:08:28]Yes.

[00:08:29]So, weeds with with soil on and dubious-looking roots.

[00:08:37]Not afraid of it going in there in the slightest.

[00:08:40]That will all add to the the mix.

[00:08:43]So, this is where I would add any weed with roots on because obviously soil is not the enemy, but the the soil will contain weed seed.

[00:09:02]So, we don't want it in those two piles cuz they're finished and the heat's generally gone out of it.

[00:09:09]But, um even this material it should be gone. This may last a little bit longer.

[00:09:16]But, that'll be covered up now.

[00:09:19]Pallet put in front of it because I haven't finished off the the front. One day I'll get around to that, but >> [laughter] [gasps] >> and that's it. That's it, finished.

[00:09:31]Well, thank you very much for joining me.

[00:09:33]Hopefully, this has have been of some interest.

[00:09:35]Please don't hesitate to ask any questions.

[00:09:39]I'll see you on the next video.

[00:09:41]Bye for now.