I’m just curious what people think about the possibility of composting in Taiwan. Obviously, it’s practically impossible in urban areas, but for people like myself who live in a more rural part of the country, shouldn’t it be possible? I’m not very knowledgeable about composting, though I’ve just started reading up about it online. We grow a lot of fruit and vegetables on our land here and I’m thinking instead of feeding food scraps to our dogs we should be composting. The dogs have food they can eat anyway. Would we also need a stock of worms? Would we need more dead vegetation as well? Thanks for any suggestions.
It’s real easy in Taiwan. Just sit in the same chair for too long and you’ll start composting yourself.
What would you use it for? I believe a lot of the food waste collected with the trash goes to feed hogs: between that and your dogs, you’re already putting your waste to good use. Unless you’ve got a specific need for the compost, why bother? You’ll just be giving yourself a series of headaches: stink, bugs, rats.
If you really want to do it, consider a tumbling composter. Gets your mess off the ground, making it easier to manage, easier to keep the vermin away.
Given the climate and environment, I’m not sure you’d need/ be able to maintain earthworms. That sucker would be generating a lot of heat.
I’m with Jabs, I’m not sure you’d be better served than doing the Pig Bucket dump and feeding your dags.
The massive moisture component would scare me off, to begin with.
Anyways, it already sounds like you’re living a total dream, let me know if you guys are considering adopting, I have my own gumboots.
:roflmao:
I did wonder what that strange smell was in my office.
As Jaboney says, food waste here gets composted anyway (or fed to pigs), so there’s not much point unless you want to use the compost yourself.
If you want to give it a go, you need to add some dry bulk material - sawdust, dry leaves (although they don’t compost very well), shredded cardboard or newspaper, straw - that kind of thing. Kitchen scraps tend to be too wet and they’ll just rot and stink. Layer in some raw earth or store-bought compost; not always necessary, but it guarantees the right bugs to start it going. Shove a few sticks or pipes in the pile, and lift it off the ground to get adequate airflow. Also it helps to maintain a reasonable size because the composting creates a specific temperature profile and rapid heat loss could upset that process. If you can’t achieve at least 0.5m3, try blocking it in with some polystyrene packing. I can’t say I’ve ever needed to do that, but it ought to work.
The only real problem in Taiwan is that a compost heap is a rat and cockroach all-you-can-eat buffet. Personally I don’t care because my plot is in the middle of nowhere, I don’t live on it, and there seems to be plenty of predators around, but you might want to put some chicken wire or something around your heap.
If it’s just food scraps then it’s not worth the bother imo. If you have a lot of yard waste that you want to compost and then reuse in the garden it’s a good idea. The rotating barrel looks like an easy DIY project. My mom bought a composting sphere that was about 2 feet in diameter with one door for filling/emptying. And then she just needed to roll it a couple times/wk.
But the food scraps might also attract the vermin like the skunk we had at our front door in college because my roommates simply threw the food scraps out the window. 
Why did he throw them out the window?
We used to leave them on the floor. The vermin could still get them just fine.
Hi there,
If anybody is still thinking of compost tumblers check this company out, they are starting to sell composters in Taiwan: http://www.kcsengineering.com
Cheers
I’ve got four compost bins going at the moment. I put a tap into each of the bins, and use the liquid that runs out to put on the garden. I added some yeast, which I bought from a supplier on yahoo auction, and have the fully-closed-in style bins (no air holes). I also put the mulch into the ground, and it only takes a month or so to disintegrate during hot weather. I don’t have a rolling type bin, I just roll the bin up and down the yard to mix it.
If you’re adding yeast and excluding air, then that’s fermentation, not composting. Garbage-flavoured wine, basically. Don’t you get fetid gas coming off? Very interesting experiment though. What does the end result look like? The liquid will contain ethanol and most likely acetic acid too - are your plants OK with that?