The Happy Couple

Okay, to start with I had a comp0st heap, hidden behind the pine trees out the back door. I flung all the kitchen scraps there and covered it over with old sacks held down by bricks. Everynight Mrs Tiggywinkle would snuffle by with her hand woven wicker basket covered with a cheerful, freshly laundered and pressed gingham cloth and gather goodies for her supper.
Did I just say that? I'm sorry that was a gratuitous lie.
I think more likely that every night the rat pack were foraging and ran off balancing cold potatoes on their noses. Anyway, mice were sighted in the house. To jump forward, because I got my photos back to front, here is the Michelin man and I built him yesterday to deal with the last of the scrap buffet.

Here's the transition shot where I salvaged a black bin from a neighbour down the road and got the most of the pile into it. The beautiful fork is posing. I never have enough material up at the house to require a tool of that size but I used it to load the trailer with rose prunings recently. I've always needed two bins. One for filling up while the other is rotting down.

Now I've had a marvellous book out of the library this week. Compost, the natural way to make food for your garden by Ken Thompson. 'Who would believe a book about compost could be so interesting and have such beautiful photos (of compost bins and buckets of scraps)?' I've exclaimed several times. I look up from the book to five pairs of blank eyes. To say disinterested would imply a reaction. Clearly beyond belief.
So, to summarise, it doesn't really matter what sort of bin or pile you have as long as you leave it long enough: A year. Turning the pile only accelerates the process.
Conclusion: don't bother.
The problem with my big garden bins below is that they dry out at the edges and only the middle breaks down.
Answer: Line the bins with cardboard because the ventilation is not required. And keep a cover on top to stop the moisture evaporating and to stop weed seeds blowing in. Okay, I'll do all that.

Down to the big vegetable garden bins: Here's Anthony pouring on cow muck from cleaning out the dairy shed. The guys shovel it into a heap outside if they get a 'code brown' while milking. (It has been observed that certain cows seem to save it up especially, don't worry girls, no names) I don't normally have such an embarrassment of materials: the two trailers, one was wood chips and straw out of the chicken run and the other was leaves which go into their own bin, alone for two years to really break down.
Finish with a quote from Ken:

'Don't be misled into unrealistic expectations of your compost pile. The compost
shown tumbling invitingly out of the bins in gardening programs and magazines
has been carefully sifted to remove all the annoying, twiggy bits. Either that,
or it came out of a sack of commercially produced soil conditioner.'

Hear, hear.