Make your own, it's easy. Kitchen waste + garden waste + wood chip + paper/cardboard + manure. Mix it up, leave it.
I agree with sentence 1.
Mine is even easier. I don't add woodchip; and newspaper only as the walls of the "heap" (it finds its way in eventually). It all goes on as it comes, no mixing. Left for 2 years, so youngest is ca 6 winter months. The top goes to start this year's heap, Most is spead on lawns or for mulch. The best goes in old bark sacks where it gets mixed crudely, and is used for potting compost. Sometimes with ca 50% sandy soil, sometimes with vermiculte, sometimes with sand/grit/perlite. To taste.
The objectives: open, free draining, moisture retentive, easy to rewet.
Bonsai and orchids - that's another story.
location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand. "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
Composting is indeed easy if you have the space and enough material. A small courtyard garden with mostly containers probably won't result in enough waste to become self-sufficient in compost, for example. Even with grass, hedge, very full borders, shrubs that are pruned and shredded annually and quite a lot of cardboard and paper as well as the fruit/veg peelings I don't make enough compost (with three bins) for everything I want it for. And the main ingredient is time so starting now won't give usable compost until probably next spring or later. I often mix sieved homemade compost with bought compost to improve it, and I
occasionally add bagged topsoil/grit/perlite/vermiculite, but not everyone has space to store the extra bags of stuff and I can see why it's frustrating not to be able to just buy and use as it comes.
Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
JI3 is supposed to be loam based. To be honest you're better off buying a bag of topsoil and adding some good quality MPC (although a lot of bagged topsoil seems to be bulked up with green waste already so there might not be any need). Last time I bought JI3 it had a very weird, dense, slippery texture. I just add garden soil when I need a bit more 'body' in my potting mixes these days.
"What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour".
I don't mind a bit of trial and error but the problem is the price of compost seems to have gone up a lot and I haven't got the cash to keep spending on bags of poor quality stuff and then keep on purchasing until I find something good.
And then even when you find something good they change the recipe or get a dodgy bag and you waste money again.
@Lyn The bag of JI No1 from last year had 40% peat in it. I've had brilliant germination rates with it so far even this year.
Make your own, it's easy. Kitchen waste + garden waste + wood chip + paper/cardboard + manure. Mix it up, leave it.
I agree with sentence 1.
Mine is even easier. I don't add woodchip; and newspaper only as the walls of the "heap" (it finds its way in eventually). It all goes on as it comes, no mixing. Left for 2 years, so youngest is ca 6 winter months. The top goes to start this year's heap, Most is spead on lawns or for mulch. The best goes in old bark sacks where it gets mixed crudely, and is used for potting compost. Sometimes with ca 50% sandy soil, sometimes with vermiculte, sometimes with sand/grit/perlite. To taste.
The objectives: open, free draining, moisture retentive, easy to rewet.
Bonsai and orchids - that's another story.
Yes, everyone has their own favourite recipe and for different reasons. I think the more different ingredients that go in then its end use is wider and less specific. I'm trying to make some Ericaceous atm for instance. I think woodchip is a good and important ingredient, it brings many different and beneficial organisms also various nutrients. I have a feeling it also provides these at different rates, possibly quite a slow rate as it takes a long time to break down. I think it may still be contributing to the soil years after it was mixed into the compost.
Composting is indeed easy if you have the space and enough material. A small courtyard garden with mostly containers probably won't result in enough waste to become self-sufficient in compost, for example. Even with grass, hedge, very full borders, shrubs that are pruned and shredded annually and quite a lot of cardboard and paper as well as the fruit/veg peelings I don't make enough compost (with three bins) for everything I want it for.
Nobody has enough home-grown compost!
You see them on TV, mulching everywhere to 3-4". You see them making it with 3 heaps, a carefull. first mix, then constant mixing and transferring to another heap. It's all a con. It's merely entertainment. They import the vast bulk.
Oddly enough I've just been given a bag of Westland peat free compost with added John Innes some of which I had earlier in the year and its completely different in composition. Much more like a peat based compost, much finer and a bit gritty as opposed to the earlier offering which had lots of twigs etc.. and was a bit claggy. This second bag is much better and closer to what I was used to.
The first lot was from Morrisons and the second from B&Q.
And no I cant make my own in the quantity needed as i simply don't have the material or land to do so as much as I would like to.
'The power of accurate observation .... is commonly called cynicism by those that have not got it.
Posts
Mine is even easier. I don't add woodchip; and newspaper only as the walls of the "heap" (it finds its way in eventually). It all goes on as it comes, no mixing. Left for 2 years, so youngest is ca 6 winter months. The top goes to start this year's heap, Most is spead on lawns or for mulch. The best goes in old bark sacks where it gets mixed crudely, and is used for potting compost. Sometimes with ca 50% sandy soil, sometimes with vermiculte, sometimes with sand/grit/perlite. To taste.
The objectives: open, free draining, moisture retentive, easy to rewet.
Bonsai and orchids - that's another story.
"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
https://www.rhs.org.uk/soil-composts-mulches/john-innes-compost
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
And then even when you find something good they change the recipe or get a dodgy bag and you waste money again.
@Lyn The bag of JI No1 from last year had 40% peat in it. I've had brilliant germination rates with it so far even this year.
I think woodchip is a good and important ingredient, it brings many different and beneficial organisms also various nutrients. I have a feeling it also provides these at different rates, possibly quite a slow rate as it takes a long time to break down.
I think it may still be contributing to the soil years after it was mixed into the compost.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Nobody has enough home-grown compost!
You see them on TV, mulching everywhere to 3-4". You see them making it with 3 heaps, a carefull. first mix, then constant mixing and transferring to another heap. It's all a con. It's merely entertainment. They import the vast bulk.
Home-compost + 50% (say) garden soil = Potting compost. Enough?
"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
The first lot was from Morrisons and the second from B&Q.
And no I cant make my own in the quantity needed as i simply don't have the material or land to do so as much as I would like to.
'The power of accurate observation .... is commonly called cynicism by those that have not got it.
George Bernard Shaw'