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Home made compost
Marrowcourgette
Posts: 20
in Talkback
Hi I've got lots of good compost at my allotment it is however made from all my weeds from said allotment. I t has been composting for approx 2 years have had ants making a nest in it,its almost like sand is it OK to grow seeds in and is there any way I can store it or do I need to use it up before I can start again thank you for your support in advance???
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What you have there, my friend is an excellent soil conditioner - garden compost.
For sowing seeds and growing plants in containers what you want is potting compost, made from variable proportions of peat(
) or coir, loam, leaf mould, sand/grit, garden compost and fertilisers. You can make this yourself, if you can be bothered, or you can buy it in big bags from the garden centre. Seed compost generally has a lower nutrient concentration than compost for larger plants.
Your splendid two-year-old garden compost can be used as a mulch on top of the soil (the worms will mix it up) or dug in; it will be excellent for helping along potatoes (put a layer in the trench and plant straight into it) and other hungry crops; it will improve drainage in clay soil and water retention in a sandy one. Geoffrey Smith even used to claim it was good enough to eat in sandwiches!
You can easily start making compost again before using up all the old stuff. Ideally you'd have three bins side by side, one making, one rotting and one ready for use. Turn the stuff from one to the next to get air into it and it'll rot quicker. Each heap should be (but rarely is) a metre cube to get it hot enough.
Oh thank you fantastic
You're welcome, beautiful
Just to add a last line to Steves post, keep a blanket on the top of it, to keep the heat in. On the second two bins as well as carpet we put corregagted sheets on top as well.
...or a bit of old carpet. Do let air get in at the sides though.
A waterproof lid on the top - like a bit of corrugated shed roofing (but I should avoid asbestos) - is a very good idea, otherwise the compost gets sodden and all the soluble nutrients wash into the soil below.
I don't know why I said that Steve. Ours are all covered in thick carpet, the sort with the fleece underlay on, blond moment!!
heh heh heh
To be honest I haven't made proper aerobic compost in my own garden for years - since I have a only a twelve-foot square yard it'd be a bit difficult. Everywhere else I do it belongs to someone else and they have their own method.
Basically, you just sling it all in a pile and it rots. Everything else is a refinement.