Selfsufficientish.com

Just wish to know opinions and reasons, I have no choice as I live in a Caravan (she called it a mobile home before she left) but I am in the reality of life, I have a bucket and chuck it system. Once a week said bucket is tipped into a 45 gallon drum (Quite distance from the van, I must add) along with veg peelings, paper, cardboard and any other stuff that will rot down.

Am I doing it right or is there an easier way

Are there holes in the bottom of the drum? You need creatures to come up from the soil and begin digesting your stuff. As they're doing this, you need to regulate the moisture content. Adding paper etc is good. Sawdust is good too.

Our system is a mesh square (tough 1" square metal mesh) about a metre wide and deep. It has a mesh lid too, to let rainwater in. It stands on soil. I think it will take about a year to 'fill' it - I make a hole in the middle of the material, throw my stuff into it, rinse the bucket and throw that water on it, then cover it with straw to keep the moisture in.

I tried using dustbins with holes in the bottom but they filled too quickly. I'm well happy with what I have now. We only stopped using the flush loo about three years ago. The first year's compost was invaded by rats, so we abandoned it and made a rat-proof one, which I'm leaving to mature for three years.

greenorelse wrote:Are there holes in the bottom of the drum? .

Yes the bottoms gone with rust

greenorelse wrote:Adding paper etc is good. Sawdust is good too..

I do this to, all the junk mail goes in here to, what a perfect use of that carp.

greenorelse wrote: cover it with straw to keep the moisture in.

Put some wood chip in thats well rotted to, I consider this to be good in the make up of compost

greenorelse wrote:I'm leaving to mature for three years.

I think your right on the three year cycle but time will tell

Ta! for the input

Hi,
I saw my name in the subject line and had to check this out. :lol

I am in the reality of life

I understand!

I've been adding urine to our compost pile for a couple of months. I'm not sure neighbors would appreciate anything else to be added. =)

Regards,
Chuck

Go on stick it all in, it all turns to dust eventually and they grow

Human poo (humanure) should be treated separately from your regular compost....

Normal compost you can use on your veg garden as soon as you like

Humanure needs to 'age' (due to pathogens, ie. nasties) and even after leaving it for 3 years it is usually still recommended to use it only on fruit trees, etc rather than in the vegetable garden.


I cut out the 'storage' issue

In my garden wee goes in a bucket and get thrown on the compost heap immediatly - a bucket is easier for a lady to 'aim' into

I built a compost toilet too which is basically a loo seat attached to a box and sited over a deep hole.... the hole is near a pear tree (that has yet to fruit but is growing and blossoming great guns) The compost toilet only gets used once or twice a week, and it will take a long time to fill that hole. I sprinkle wood shavings down the hole to cover any poop, this stops it from smelling and keeps the flies away.

When the hole is full I shall move the toilet elsewhere.... probably near another fruit tree.

Annpan

Yes, age is good for humanure - and I won't take any risks with our food - but don't forget, a most important criteria is heat. There's no point in going into the technicalities here as it's all clearly explained in Joseph Jenkins' The Humanure Handbook.

I recommend it to anyone even remotely interested in the subject. One of my all-time favourite books, packed with fascinating and useful information. Buy ten copies and give them as Xmas presents this year.

My main intention for the compost that comes from my drum is for growing trees and hedging plants and I think that will take at least 3 years from the time the drum is full to decay into a usable condition.

Thanks folks for your input.

Read the humanure handbook, you can find it online as a free to download PDF.

http://www.weblife.org/humanure/

As others have said, heat and time. It'll explain everything you need to know about how to compost it safely.

greenorelse wrote:Annpan

Yes, age is good for humanure - and I won't take any risks with our food - but don't forget, a most important criteria is heat. There's no point in going into the technicalities here as it's all clearly explained in Joseph Jenkins' The Humanure Handbook.

I recommend it to anyone even remotely interested in the subject. One of my all-time favourite books, packed with fascinating and useful information. Buy ten copies and give them as Xmas presents this year.

I keep meaning to read that book. My post was aimed more at readers who may not be aware that human crap can't just be thrown on the compost heap. Because you can never be sure who is reading and I wouldn't want anyone to risk their health.

Actually, that goes for carnivore manure in general.

Mike

Good point Ann Pan. People do the strangest things...

(Such as shit and piss in good drinking water.)

I try to encourage visiting men to pee along the chicken area fencing. Apparently, foxes are put off by the scent.

greenorelse wrote:Annpan

Yes, age is good for humanure - and I won't take any risks with our food - but don't forget, a most important criteria is heat. There's no point in going into the technicalities here as it's all clearly explained in Joseph Jenkins' The Humanure Handbook.

I recommend it to anyone even remotely interested in the subject. One of my all-time favourite books, packed with fascinating and useful information. Buy ten copies and give them as Xmas presents this year.

I love the book... very sensible and balanced arguments! We have a very healthy little tangerine tree growing above the compost from two and a half years ago.The compost ended up in a deep hole that was left after another tree died and, as it was next to the compost pile, we just filled the hole with the composted humanure and planted the tree on top!

Sorry to dig up an old post and I apologise if that's not the done thing on here.
In truth I perhaps should have found this post a few years ago because I'd put waste from my daughter's potty onto the compost heap when she was younger. I'd also put the nappy contents on too when she was a baby. At the time we used disposable nappies, the debate about their enviromental cost seemed to be split as to wheather the use of power in their making was much different to the costs involved in washing traditional nappies, but to lessen the damage I followed some advice about tearing them apart and only discarding the non biodegradable sections and composting the gel that soaks up the by products. Not the most pleasent job in the world but not one that I had to look forward to for the rest of my life.
This dragging up of this post was also brought on by my talking to a friend who had recently visited Nepal where he was saying that human waste was commonly used on the fields whereras animal waste was dried and used as fuel for cooking and so forth.
Male urine was also mentioned by someone too and I've also gone down that route and it has kept cats and the like out of our gardens so I can confirm that one.


Pete