What shouldn't go in your compost bin?

I have 5 compost bins - I really I would like those big bays you see on the TV  in my dreams!

Anyway, I also pay £40 a year for a garden bin - I can put any garden waste in this. I generally put in most weeds that I feel will start to regrow in my bin.

So today I weeded around a few of my fruit trees  lots of stuff that filled up my bin! I'm too worried to put in couch grass, ground elder and nettles, dandelions. Am I being too fussy? Do you compost it all?

How about getting a hot compost system and composting the lot at home?

I've been toying with the idea- I've looked on my local council website. They often do "composting deals" I had my worm bin at a bargain price.
At the moment they are doing the Green Johanna Hot Bin for £50. I may join VC?
   

We don't have to pay for our green bin, thankfully. I do have a hot bin (a Green Johanna), but I'm a bit cautious about what I put in there as I'm new to composting and would rather have small amounts of good quality compost than dump everything in and have it go wrong.

Based on my experience last year, I've decided to not try and compost the following: woody prunings (too slow to break down), perennial weeds (might not break down effectively, and thus could reinfect my garden), certain food waste such as avocado stones (also very slow to break down - assuming they don't sprout!) and raw potatoes (they seem to like it in my compost bin and look healthier than when I threw them in!).

I probably need my hot bin to get hotter, but it's all a learning experience!

I've been toying with the idea- I've looked on my local council website. They often do "composting deals" I had my worm bin at a bargain price.
At the moment they are doing the Green Johanna Hot Bin for £50. I may join VC?

That's a great deal! I got mine for £80 with an online voucher (my council weren't doing a deal as they have a free green bin service), but £50 is a steal! They're a bit of a pain to assemble, but there's a useful video on YouTube.

I found I had to add a lot of brown waste such as paper and cardboard, because my garden doesn't produce much - most of my waste is from the veg beds and kitchen, and in warm weather you get lots of condensation and fruit flies unless you have something to absorb all the moisture.

I've been toying with the idea- I've looked on my local council website. They often do "composting deals" I had my worm bin at a bargain price.
At the moment they are doing the Green Johanna Hot Bin for £50. I may join VC?

You're lucky, Scarlet! At that price its worth a gamble.
I don't have to pay for my green bin. Actually, we can have 2 bins, collected fortnightly in summer, monthly in winter. The only stuff I put in there are spiky things, like brambles, hawthorn and holly, tough roots like hogweed, dock and nettle, couch grass and seed heads. All the rest goes to the chickens or the compost bin/Hot bin.

If you get your pile hot enough you can put anything organic in. In reality it's hard to get the pile consistently hot enough all the way through and turning regularly can be a lot of effort. I don't put seed heads in, or any roots of persistent weeds (only the foliage). Stuff like ground elder I would drown or solarise instead, but our green bin collection is free so it goes in there for the professional composters to take care of.

You can bash avocado stones into bits with a brick etc. to make them break down quicker. The skins I find even tougher to compost than the stones!

£50 for a Green Johanna is a great price!

I have several pallet bins on the allotment and they should be large enough to get hot enough but they never seem to quite reach high enough temps. For that reason I tend to chuck most perennial weeds into plastic barrels with water and leave for a year to drown. Makes an evil smelling soup but seems to work ok.

A useful tip I got from a YT video about setting up a swanky HotBin™ was to bury a 5-litre bottle filled with hot water in the middle when you set it up, to get the pile warmed up. Of course you need enough waste to surround the bottle - they suggest using shredded paper along with your green waste.

I'm going to try it next week, as I have an empty laundry detergent container that was hanging around waiting for a good use

The official HotBin is even more expensive than a Green Johanna. True, it's more compact, appears to be insulated and comes with a thermometer plus some extra bits and bobs (an empty 5-litre bottle and some "bulking agent" that looks suspiciously like shredded bark), but you can start hot-composting for a lot less!

Stuff like ground elder I would drown or solarise instead, but our green bin collection is free so it goes in there for the professional composters to take care of.

I think I will continue to let them
take care of it but get the Johanna as well  
Digging up ground elder is such hard work, and really upsetting to see it invading new areas of ground it's worth £40 to take it off site. I can't chance it! I don't know how long it has to sit in water before it will sprout again?

I often have a few buckets around with weed sitting in water.

I would love for it by to disappear overnight, it is so much work to keep on top of it. It's in the grass...so it creeps in the borders.

My neighbour moved here about 5 years before me. She weed killed the whole garden and dug every root before starting again. I wish I had known how difficult it was.