Friday 22 February 2008

Gardening - Composting and shredders

For the last 15-20 years I have been a keen recycler, especially in the garden. This means that I have spent a lot of time composting garden and kitchen waste of all types. During that time I have learnt how to make good sweet compost and worked out how important it is to shred as much of the materials as possible before composting it.


For the last ten years my wife and I have been progressively cultivating around 1/3rd of an acre of garden. Originally it was simply laid out to grass, but we have progressively put in beds, vegetable patches and hedges. Trees and shrubs have matured and the amount of organic material both produced and required by the garden has continually increased.

Over the next few weeks I plan to post articles on composting itself and my experience with four shredders that I have used over the last 15 years. While they will not be definitive reviews they will in report my real life experience with them, in some cases over several years of use.

I plan to write about how I get this:

to look like this:

Three of the four shredders I shall review I have owned and used over several years, the fourth petrol driven one I have managed to borrow:
  • A simple Al-Ko H1100 electric shredder - around 15 years ago
  • A Bosch ATX 18-35 Silent electric shredder - bought in 2000 and used for 4 years
  • A Scheppach Lonos 2 electric shredder - bought in 2004 and still in use
  • A Eliet Minor petrol shredder - recently (2008) borrowed for a couple of weeks
One thing I should make quite clear is that I have no connection in any way with any of the manufacturers of the equipment I shall comment on.
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