I mentioned the Hotbin in a previous post and hinted that its purchase had revolutionised compost making at Hafan yr Hud. I’m not sure if that is the case and I’m certainly not certain if the Hotbin, in its current state, is friend or foe.
It is the repository of all kitchen waste and when working at its optimum there is hardly any smell, there are no flies, nor rodents and it produces lovely crumbly compost in around 8 weeks. As the name suggests it is a hot composting system and as such it is totally reliant on the heap remaining aerobic, for this to happen it needs to be fed regularly and it requires a plentiful supply of oxygen in the form of good air flow. For convenience, it’s positioned opposite the back door and is mostly fed in the evenings.
We’d noticed an increase in flies in and around the kitchen, I thought they were fruit flies and blamed their presence on the last of the stored apples lurking at the bottom of the fruit bowl. Oddly enough they continued to be problem long after the apples had been disposed of, in fact glasses of wine became fly swimming pools and fly swatting became a seriously enjoyable pastime, with all of us vying for the highest score. It had to stop, I was developing a taste for blood sport.
I’d used the last of the carrots for soup and had a mountain of peelings and bits of rotten
carrot to deal with so thought it best to bypass the caddy and dump them straight into the Hotbin. Overladen with scraps, leftovers and peelings I opened the bin and was momentarily blinded, my head masked in a cloud of flies, it was like participating in a micro murmuration. With the ping of a penny dropping ringing in my ears I realised that the Hotbin, my pride and joy, had gone anaerobic.
There was no time to lose, it had to be emptied cleaned down and re-layered i.e. a layer of anaerobic gunge to a thinner layer of well composted bark… but how to do it? I had no desire to empty it spade by spade into a line of waiting wheelbarrows. Inspiration hit and I remembered the heavy duty trolley that was in permanent storage in the darkest corner of the shed. Trolley resurrected, it took quite a bit of effort and (even though I say it myself) ingenuity to balance the bin onto the trolley. Moving it was another matter, the weight of the load made it difficult to manoeuvre, however I soon got into a rhythm and was quietly congratulating myself when the world inexplicably flipped, the sky was where the Hotbin should have been, the ditch was where the sky should have been and the contents of the Hotbin were certainly not where they should have been …. I had been well and truly gunged.
Bara, pridd a Prosecco 