Last week we opened up our first humanure compost bin. It had been sitting for about a year since we last added any material to it and I had been itching to see how well it had performed. I was going to leave it a bit longer – perhaps until the new year – but I thought that Sandra, our German Woofer since the last month, would enjoy the experience!
Sandra has been occupying our wooden cabin and has been putting a lot of fine tuning into it. As a long term visitor she is obviously aware of our composting system for all organic waste (including human poo) and is a regular (i hope) contributor. She agreed that she would be curious to see what will become of the contents of compost bin number two if number one is anything to go by.
The contents had shrunk to about one third of what was there when I closed it up and apart from quite a few avocado stones (some of which were beginning to sprout) there was very little evidence of what the original contents had held.
We beheld a pile of uniformly dark (almost black) crumbly soil-like material which had no offensive odour. We shovelled it into wheelbarrows and emptied it around the fruit trees (apple, pear, cherry and hazel nut).
sandra feeding the fruit trees
Towards the bottom of the heap the texture became a bit less crumbly and although there was nothing obviously uncomposted the breakdown did not seem to have been as thorough. This might have been because when we started the pile I had not yet secured a source of straw and we were just adding grass clippings as filler to the pile. High carbon is what is required as filling for compost, such as wood chip, straw or sawdust and grass clippings are probably more nitrogen-based than is helpful.
Actually, last week Sandra and I got a round bale of straw from a neighbouring farm. It only cost €15 and should last a while. The last one sufficed for two years.
When I saw how thoroughly the compost had broken down I was tempted to put it onto the garden overwinter instead of on the fruit trees as I had planned. I only have a small amount of rotted cow manure for the garden next spring and the temptation was strong.
However, the fruit trees will be glad of it too and while any doubts remain I’ll err on the side of caution. This was, after all, only our first harvest.
Thanks for sharing this, it’s so interesting to read real experiences of composting human waste, we’re reading The Humanure Handbook’ at the moment and it is really inspiring.
Gina and Ash xxx
Hey folks! SO excited to find your blog… We are ‘growing our own’ off-grid eco campsite in Montenegro and have compost toilets too (will be sometime before we get our own humanure harvest though). I’m going to spend some time having a good old trawl through your posts as it seems like we are doing very similar things…
Great to bump into you. Fantastic blog.
Den
Me again – would love to know what blogs you frequent… have you thought about a ‘blogs we like’ feature on your home page like I have on mine?
Den
No Poo like yer own poo, the circle will be round this coming fruit harvest! What a great feeling that will be! Can’t wait to get over to see the beautiful little bog!