I wish home-made compost and shop-bought sowing/potting composts had different names. Commercial compost is sterile so you won't get weeds competing with your carefully sown seeds, has (or should have) a reasonably uniform texture, and has (again, or should have) the appropriate level of added nutrients for the advertised purpose - low levels for seed sowing, higher levels to last around six weeks for multi-purpose or potting composts, slow release in some container composts. And there are different compositions (peat free, peat based, soil based) for different purposes.
Home made garden compost can be a component of home made potting compost, but it's a bit hit or miss what it contains in the way of seeds, nutrients etc. Far better to use it as a mulch, where it will feed soil organisms and lead to healthier plants.
Since 2019 I've lived in east Clare, in the west of Ireland.
@Liriodendron you can call it what you like, it's your compost!. We've bought several bags this year that seemed a lot more like home-made: fibrous, bit twiggy; it looks like they might've tried to speed things up to keep up with demand
Thanks for all the replies, folks. I'll start adding some shredded newspaper, etc. to balance up the split and will use as a component of the planting process rather than using it on its own. It isn't really possible to turn it within the bin, so I'm relying on anything going in breaking down on its own. Anything that hasn't rotted down when it comes out at the bottom just gets re-submitted in the top.
Thanks for all the replies, folks. I'll start adding some shredded newspaper, etc. to balance up the split and will use as a component of the planting process rather than using it on its own. It isn't really possible to turn it within the bin, so I'm relying on anything going in breaking down on its own. Anything that hasn't rotted down when it comes out at the bottom just gets re-submitted in the top.
Home composting is a big subject, as I'm sure you realise now!
It helps to know when talking about composting at home there are three main methods that can be defined
Hot composting, this is the science end (literally) it involves precise mixes of greens and browns, monitoring of moisture and heat and regular turning, if done right it should kill off weed seeds and the result is more towards a growing medium for veg than just a mulch.
Cold composting, what most gardeners do, pile up materials as and when they become available, maybe only turn once or twice in a season, makes a fine mulch and soil conditioner.
Vermiculture, worm composting, not any old worm, there are specific worms for the job, the result is a sticky but very nice compost.
For our kitchen scraps we use a plastic bin, with worms, it's great. Breaks down super fast, I only put a little bit of browns such as egg cartons torn up in it, spent soil from potted plants goes in there too. It doesn't need turning at all, the worms turn it.
For general garden waste, I have a cold heap. I pay little attention to it and leave it a lot of the time for wildlife. Now and again I clear it out and use the resulting mulch.
My hot heap is a mix of 50:50 greens and browns, layered with fresh horse poop. It's destined as the medium for a no-dig vegetable bed.
At the end of the day though, they all produce compost.
Thanks for the link @stevek_bath - I feel more informed now. I've started adding more 'browns' (mostly cardboard) to balance up my bin. I recently opened up the bottom of my compost bin to find it was very sloppy and smelt BAD! It was clearly too wet presumably because of my previous habit of only putting 'greens' in the top? I shovelled out the sloppy stuff and dumped it back in the top for a second attempt at the process. The next layer up from the bottom did seem better (didn't smell half as bad!) so I've used some of that mixed in with multi-purpose compost as a growing medium for some of my fruit and veg. I did notice that there are an awful lot of worms in the bin which can only be a good thing though!
I've always wondered about emptying the vacuum cleaner into the compost: doesn't it rather depend what your carpets are made of? If they're 100% wool, I can see that the fibres would be a good long-term source of nitrogen, but if they're synthetic? I suppose the skin flakelets and general grime in the mix would be useful, but I don't like the idea of mixing synthetic fibres into the soil.
Posts
Home made garden compost can be a component of home made potting compost, but it's a bit hit or miss what it contains in the way of seeds, nutrients etc. Far better to use it as a mulch, where it will feed soil organisms and lead to healthier plants.
We've bought several bags this year that seemed a lot more like home-made: fibrous, bit twiggy; it looks like they might've tried to speed things up to keep up with demand
It helps to know when talking about composting at home there are three main methods that can be defined
Hot composting, this is the science end (literally) it involves precise mixes of greens and browns, monitoring of moisture and heat and regular turning, if done right it should kill off weed seeds and the result is more towards a growing medium for veg than just a mulch.
Cold composting, what most gardeners do, pile up materials as and when they become available, maybe only turn once or twice in a season, makes a fine mulch and soil conditioner.
Vermiculture, worm composting, not any old worm, there are specific worms for the job, the result is a sticky but very nice compost.
For our kitchen scraps we use a plastic bin, with worms, it's great. Breaks down super fast, I only put a little bit of browns such as egg cartons torn up in it, spent soil from potted plants goes in there too. It doesn't need turning at all, the worms turn it.
For general garden waste, I have a cold heap. I pay little attention to it and leave it a lot of the time for wildlife. Now and again I clear it out and use the resulting mulch.
My hot heap is a mix of 50:50 greens and browns, layered with fresh horse poop. It's destined as the medium for a no-dig vegetable bed.
At the end of the day though, they all produce compost.
I found this video quite helpful and gave me some good tips (many already shared in this thread). It's a minefield!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1cVCkCfwi0&t=25s