Compost pens: why I ban the "Cone"!

I always instruct Clients, Trainees, Students - and anyone with even a passing interest in compost - to stack their compost pens in such a way that there is a depression in the centre of each pen, and not to pile things in a sort of cone shape. 

This is all to do with water retention: far more compost pens fail from being too dry, than from being too wet. 

If you pile everything up in to a cone in the centre of the pen, the rainwater, dew, etc will roll off and out the sides.

If you make a depression in the middle, the water will soak into the pen's contents.

It really is that simple.

Here's the compost pen of a well-trained Client: 

More or less flat on top, slight depression in the very centre, only a small amount of shredded paper, and a good mixture of weeds, vegetable peelings and rhubarb leaves, along with a fairly small amount of grass.

Perfect!

That's not a lid, by the way - those slats of wood on the top were just sitting there temporarily.

So these Clients get top marks, and - more to the point - they get excellent compost.

Now, I have a student who didn't really believe the whole Anti-Cone philosophy:  we were working together in a large garden a couple of weeks back, and our tasks produced a huge volume of garden waste, far more that you would normally expect to find. We tied some pallets into open-fronted pens, and piled in the waste. 

Both pens were piled higher than the pallets. The student piled theirs in a cone, whereas I piled mine in a flat-topped, push-it-into-the-corners arrangement.

One week later:

 

 

Can you see the difference?
 

 

 

My pen, flat on top, has sunk down a considerable amount. It was level with the top of the pallet at the back, but now it's a good three to four slats lower, especially in the middle.

Whereas the student's pen is still a cone, and is still very nearly as high as when it was built.

Conclusive proof, they agreed! 

So, dear listener, when piling up material which you hope will rot down, don't make it into a cone, make it into a flat-top shape.

I rest my case!

Did you enjoy this article? Did you find it useful? Would you like me to answer your own, personal, gardening question? Become a Patron - just click here - and support me! Or use the Donate button for a one-off donation. If just 10% of my visitors gave me a pound a month, I'd be able to spend a lot more time answering all the questions!!