1. First I swept up the space in front of the bin. We had a broken window pane a while back, and while most of the glass fragments had been cleared away, there were still a few that needed sweeping up.
2. I edged the bin forward a few inches, and opened up the door at the bottom, cleaning up the soil from the edges, so that it goes back cleanly.
3. Using a spade, I dug out some compost from the bottom of the bin. I took out a wedge, up to the top of the door at the front, making sure I got to the back at least at the bottom.
4. I then cleaned up the faces where the door fits, and then put the door back in place. I was lucky, the remaining compost did not fall down to fill the void until after I fitted the door, and secured it with ties.
5. Taking three or four spadefuls into a tray, I lifted it up to table height, and took out any large pieces that did not immediately crumble in the hand.
6. The twigs went to one side to be reused. The twigs help the oxygen get to the composting process.
7. Pieces of slate are ready to wash and put back onto the slate path.
8. I threw away everything else I took out: nested pieces of egg shell, peach stones, avocado skin, pieces of plastic. There were other chunks of unidentified material that did not immediately crumble. Although tea bags did not compost that well, we will continue to compost them, as the tea itself seemed to compost okay.
9. I ended up with one and a half tubs of compost, which we will cover with plastic sheets to keep the compost dry before we use it.
