How to Turn Shredded Paper into Compost Garden Plant Food

G'day I'm mark from self-sufficient me and in this video I'm gonna show you guys how to turn this shredded paper into this fantastic fertile beautiful organic plant food that's right turn your awful overcharging council rates bill into wonderful composted worm and plant food let's get into it! [Intro Music] It's often said that we're moving into a paperless society and whilst it might be true that yeah we are in a digital age and we're using less paper the fact is that there is still a lot of paper in the world today but there's no reason why this paper can't be repurposed and put to good use back into the garden all this takes is a little preparation small amount of effort and the rest is done by bacteria other small animals and time. Homemade compost like this is far superior to anything you're gonna buy commercially because it's made at home organically it's fresh it's not high heat treated or radiated and it contains microbes that continue to improve your soil and also help plants grow once you put this into your regular garden beds so in fact you're not only lowering your own environmental footprint by recycling and creating compost this way you're also saving money and helping your plants to grow better by using your own premium soil additive turning shredded paper into compost is a pretty easy process but I'm going to break it down for you get it break it down into four easy steps now to help with this process all you really need is a couple of storage containers some large ones would be good a paper shredding machine of course which I don't have here because we do it inside in the home office some secateurs helps and a tumbler now if you haven't got a compost tumbler like this you can use the old pile method it's just going to take a little bit longer for you to break down the paper and make the compost. Step number one, collect your paper and shred it use a large container I like these plastic bins they're perfect and they're not very expensive they hold a lot and they look pretty tidy collect all your waste paper things like bills speeding fines old lotto tickets junk mail from your local council or letters from your local parliamentary members all those types of materials are great to be composited down because manufacturers aren't allowed to produce paper or ink that's toxic anymore and by the time it's composted down it's perfectly fine to use in your garden however what you shouldn't shred and use in your compost is plastics of course things like contact covered textbooks, packaging, credit cards or even those business envelopes with the clear plastic window. I've been guilty in the past of shredding them and all that happens is you end up with some slivers of that plastic in your final composting and you have to pick it out doesn't do it any harm or anything it's just that it's not ideal is it? Step number two fill the tumbler chamber. When I'm composting in one of these things I like to use a two-thirds to one ratio meaning filling the tumbler chamber with about two thirds paper and one third wet or green waste such as kitchen scraps and green garden waste nice lush plants like galangal stems are great for this simply cut into small pieces and throw them in. In this batch I also added some used bedding from our guinea pig tractor as the extra poop and urea adds a little more nutrient to the mix manures from guinea pigs sheep chickens cows horses and that type of thing are completely fine to use in one of these tumblers or in composting in general, however, I probably don't need to mention this but I will for those who are new to composting what I wouldn't add is leftover meats dog cat or human poop as these materials can breed dangerous pathogens that can create diseases and you don't want to add this to your vegetable garden I mean I certainly wouldn't be touching with my hands if it had that stuff in there now I know there's some tumblr companies and people say that you can compost you know cat and dog manures and human poop and all that... if, yeah, you know, it's not for me you can if you want but I would recommend you didn't. Step number three - turn your tumbler. [Laughing] I told you these steps were easy didn't I. You want to try to turn your tumbler every day if you can and it helps if you put it in a nice convenient place like somewhere where you're walking past so that you can remember to just give it a bit of a turn... Turning your tumbler like this what it does is it aerates the mixing side and that helps to break down faster and also if it's sitting in one spot if you can imagine just sitting there sort of pooling in its juices it can rot and get all stinky and smelly and not perform and not mix with the other dry ingredients so yeah turning it like that helps a great deal in a matter of days you'll start to see the mixed discolouring and breaking down it will literally change structure before your eyes and don't worry about seeing bugs or fermentation flies invading your tumbler as these all help the process your compost should be ready between six weeks and six months and the reason why I give such a long time frame or window is because every composting situation is different and I know some companies and tumbler companies will say you can make compost in under two weeks or our composter will make fast compost in four weeks or six weeks max and whilst that can happen it's not always that fast some materials break down slower than others some mixes of ingredients breakdown better than others composting at a warmer time of year will make the breakdown faster then if done in winter even here in the subtropics I've noticed our first batch started in autumn has taken much longer than our second started in spring. Step number four - use the final product use this shredded paper compost in the garden like as a top dressing or dig it into the soil as a soil improver it'll add nutrients it'll help your plants grow nice and healthy because as well as nutrients compost has great water holding qualities and will improve the overall structure of your medium if you don't have an immediate useful your compost store it somewhere to use it later like in a bucket or in a bin like this or even underneath a tarp somewhere out of the way. So, those were the four easy steps on how to turn shredded paper into compost like this so now let's bring you over here and let's go through the compost and just have a quick look at it okay so I wanted you to have a close look at this so that you can see exactly how this paper turned out really does look beautiful doesn't it but you will see bits of egg see that eggshell there's bit of eggshell there there's little bits of... you can still see bits of paper you will get the odd little piece of paper this will all break down in the soil anyway and look here there's a little bit of plastic that's what I mean well you know you're going to get these little shards of plastic if you are like me and forgot to blooming-well like there's one here's a good example that's from the envelope but anyway like I said you can pick them out it's not a big deal but you've got bits of stick that's still a bit of galangal root there and you know you're going to get the odd pieces of bark or debris that hasn't broken down that's all fine you can sift this and use that for seedlings if you wanted or I like to just whack it straight in to the garden like this and it will continue to break down over time and just add good structure to your soil. One thing I wanted to share with you was just how good this compost smells now it's a little bit weird but when you smell it like that it smells really earthy soily and nice you know like a like a rainy morning you know in the forest it's got that beautiful smell about it and that is another way you can tell that your compost is done but let's go over just some more points about making this don't stress too much about the quantities and the mix that you put in there it's amazing isn't it that this was the majority of it was shredded paper but when you're making this mix you might find that you know you've put in a lot of shredded paper and you're turning it and it's too dry if it's too dry simply just add a little bit more wet ingredients to it add some more kitchen scraps scraps to it or green waste whatever it is and that will add moisture to it and it'll make it break down better likewise if you find the mix is too wet and sloppy well then add some more paper to it and that will dry it out a little bit more you can continually add materials over time as your compost is being made but if you're adding you know your materials constantly because you want to grow that compost the end result into a much bigger one and fill that chamber up that's fine it might get a bit heavy in the composter you can do that but just remember it's gonna take a long time then if you're continually adding raw materials to compost that's nearly completed if you've got a dual chamber like this what I do is I pack one full let it break down and the other one I use as like an overflow chamber where I can just stick all the overflow compost and kitchen scraps in there when that first one is done and made well then I pack the second one that's already got this overflow in there a packet full of paper and then turn that into the one that I don't touch and I'll use the other one as the overflow chamber again if you know what I mean... I just swap it around if you find that the final mix is still too heavy and gluggy and say a bit like clay what you can do is use some clay breaker some Gypsum mix it in with your compost and that'll break it up nicely and I'm sure you're wondering what's my opinion on the tumbler system versus the bay system and to be honest I like both and I'm using both I used to use old plastic containers and not a tumbler it was a sort of similar method except it doesn't get tumbled around both can be used in conjunction with each other I like the bay system because you can put more in it and because it's in the ground it allows other types of animals like worms to access the compost but it does take longer for the compost to break down a tumbler composter like that does a great job because it's faster it's convenient because you can just sort of stick it in and just turn it every now and again so I like both systems and I recommend both types if you're wondering do I recommend that particular brand the Maze brand of tumbler jury is out at the moment I'll be doing a review on it in a couple of weeks and I'll let you guys know exactly what I think of this tumbler now that I've had some time to use it and that's how you turn shredded paper into beautiful compost you know there's something really satisfying about turning your paper bills into plant and worm food if you liked this video make sure you give it a big brown or green thumbs up and share it around because that helps a lot as well thanks a lot for watching if you've got any comments whack'em down below and if you've got any of your own tips on how to make compost whack'em down below as well bye for now [Outro music - birds chirping ] Outro music

Channel: Self Sufficient Me

Views: 1,035,895

Keywords: How to compost paper, how to compost in a tumbler, how to compost, can you compost shredded paper, compost shredded paper, can you compost shredded office paper, compost, how to make compost, paper, shredded paper, compost tumbler, compost tips, compost tips and tricks

Id: 1VNSvkZ_D_c

Length: 13min 46sec (826 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 13 2019