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This is the mighty thing about gardening, I think, is that there is no single way to do anything. What works for you is important. I used to make compost with all the garden waste, grass mowings, etc and put in layers when I made a heap from scratch i.e. I had saved up all the materials needed, bit like a lasagne, then when I turned it it gave me a good mix of materials, too thick layer of grass mowings stick together and produce a grey fungus in the middle, so it makes sense to layer this in or stir it in well. Now all the veg peelings and weeds get fed to my extensive collection of poultry and comes out now as a handy compost activator on the shavings they get bedded on, so now the only stuff that goes on would be if I have been given lots of mowings, which I work in with a cultivator and blighted potato haulms which I cook in the hot heap. Turning and working the heap in my experience in the quickest way to get useable compost quickly. Oh, you are right, twenty five years no digging and I call myself Digger doh!!
Grass mowings are an excellent source of nitrogen, layer the mowings, shreddings and personal activator, too thick layer of mowings does not work well so thinner layers are best, but this will heat everything up well and break the woodier stuff up nicely. After the heat goes out of it, turn it and incorporate more compost activators (ie mowings, urine, nettle tops, comfrey) Make sure your shreddings are nice and damp as well. You should get some lovely stuff
You could collect the urine from your home and mix with water and add to the municipal shreddings, the nitrogen in the urine will help the tougher stuff to break down. I used to collect all my neighbours grass mowings and vegetable peelings to mix in with woody shreddings to give a good mix of materials. I sometimes put my chicken bedding which consists mainly of shavings straight on the beds in winter if I run out of compost bin space, it seems to break down quite well and by spring has composted down quite nicely. Some people keep rabbits and guinea pigs, you could see if neighbours keep these little pets and collect their bedding as well.
Would a commercial salad spinner be ok for the job, cost about 90-120 quid, but would last for many years, you can get them on Ebay or 3663,
I think the beetles love living under cover, in the tunnels where I use newspaper covering with mowings as mulch, if you lift that there are loads of black beetles of all descriptions under there. The paths are kind of composted as they were just grass that I mowed short and then covered with the fabric and I guess the bed material moves around. I garden on a steep slope so there is always movement of organic material . I also have quite a lot of NZ flatworms and I have found that where there are flatworm eggs there are beetles which I think are waiting for the moment they hatch out and they can get a lovely succulent meal of baby flatworms.
I don’t grow celeriac, in fact I hate anything that tastes of celery,
I have used both boarded and non boarded beds. I prefer to use boards as it does keep the soil in place. The boards I use are gravel boards (used for fencing) 6″ x 1″ and they usually come in about 10 foot plus lengths. They are treated, these days you are not allowed to use any arsenic and that has been the case for a few years now, you can always check with your wood merchant what they use,but it should be Tanalith E, which is based on copper. I hate grass paths, time spent mowing and edging up is a bit of my life gone I can never get back,if you don’t keep on top of it and the grass grows into your bed, slugs will use that to travel on, so I use landscape fabric on the paths, which if you put underneath the edges of the wood stop a lot of weeds growing up, I put good quality woodchips on my paths which last a good few years and then of course they are useful mulch when they break down. On my allotment I used thick cardboard for the paths and covered with straw which was cheap and available and again once broken down, is great mulch and of course in wet weather, you can still access your plot from your unmuddy paths. My observations over 20 years of gardening on beds is that yes, if you have paths covered and wooden planks you can make hidey holes for slugs – but also this is ideal habitat for rove beetles as well, If I ever pull up the path material and look underneath, there is a wealth of rove beetles running for cover, also if I am not mowing and weeding paths, I have a bit more time to spend hand picking off caterpillars and slug hunting.
I have used seaweed, of course it is was used here in Ireland quite a bit on the land. I mulched under some cabbage and kale plants with it, they like a bit of salt, I wouldn’t bother washing it, and it seemed to act as a good slug barrier, it broke down after about 9 months, takes a little while to degrade, if it dries out (fat chance of anything drying out here), it can take longer.
I use DE, you don’t need to use food grade, just the poultry one. I use it in my hen house to control red mite. It is a very fine powder and quite tricky to puff on the plants. I tried it out on some aphids in the tunnel and then rinsed it off a few hours later, I am a bit concerned about harming rove beetles and ladybirds so did not want to leave it on too long. It did seem to work. The flea beetle thing is a well known way to deal with them, brushing along the tops of the plants with a bit of cardboard with vaseline on captures them as they jump up and you can go over them a couple of times a day until you have reduced the numbers, guess if you catch a few makes you feel better:)