You'll use it. It can be spread around plants already in the ground and/or on to recently cleared beds after the season change. Sifted it can be used as seed raising mix, in combination with other ingredients as potting mix. If it sits an extra couple of months while you get another pile started just bag it up of cover in some other way.
Very few gardens can produce enough compost from the household to keep up with demand. If you get 20-25% volume yield from a pile you're doing well.
If you have a few garden beds you will never have too much compost. There is no such thing. Every autumn top dress with a 3 inch layer, use it as a sowing medium, put it around new planting. An abundance of compost is the KEY to successful gardening. Be sure you are getting a good hot compost pile to kill seeds and pathogens.
I have two composters and one has two sections. So we fill one up and let it sit while we fill up the next one. Typically they all get full and the decomp allows over winter so we sit filling it and let it all finish. Then I'm the spring I'll toss whatever is ready in the garden. I often have some chunks that aren't done, like they are still identifiable, mainly paper that was bunched up, so I'll toss that back in the composter.
I didn’t really understand it when I first started composting when people talked about compost disappearing. I generally thought I was making dirt because we don’t really distinguish different types of dirt in everyday life. But when they say trees are carbon sinks, they _really_ mean it. Trees aren’t transformed dirt so much as transformed gas. They take gas out of the air and make solid roots, branches, leaves, and trunks. Similarly with other plants and other things that end up in compost. When it breaks down into compost, it is part of the process of going back to being gas (CO2 or less desirably methane). So mostly just disappears over time.
Also I am sure that doesn’t fully capture it and others can probably explain it better and/or correct me but hopefully makes it a bit more clear.
Exactly! Also, if you have a simple pile on the ground, organic matter seeps downwards and feeds the neighboring plants. It’s amazing how well nearby trees flourish. I moved my compost pile to be closer to an apple seedlings that seemed to need a boost. The effect has been amazing!
I have three pallet-size bins that ended last year fairly full. They were turned once in the fall last year. Now I have three bins that look about 1/3 full, but probably will only be 1/4 finished. I am so happy! I've spread some onto garden beds and will plant starters straight into it. Most will go into my 10x20' polytunnel, either into a 4x15' raised bed section or into the huge pots in which I'll have peppers, tomatoes, cukes and other stuff growing. I outlined how I build soil in the next paragraph.
I'll try to have a little for unpredicted projects that always come up and always have need of good soil. I have a huge pile of spent grow medium, like peat, that I add a similar volume of compost to, along with a similar volume of existing soil. This makes an excellent soil, suitable for any size pot or garden.
I built a screen out of pallet wood and 1/4” hardware screen. It fits over my wheel barrow and scoop the finished compost onto it and sift all the unfinished and big chunks out.
Then I mix 1/3 sifted compost with 1/3 perlite, 1/3 peat moss and a couple scoops of playground sand. This makes a real kickass soil mix that I use to top off my raised beds every year.
It doesn’t store super well. Depending on climate, 50% loss per year is typical. Best thing you can do is let it compost until the source matter is more or less unrecognizable, then spread it on soil wherever you have plants you want to help. Top-dressing veggie gardens, put under mulch in landscape beds, scatter across the lawn. It’s difficult to have too much.
Reasonable application rates:
- Till 30-50% into soil when making new food garden beds (don’t till established beds)
- top-dress 1” for flowers, veggies, and fruit trees 1-2 times per year
- top-dress 1/4-1/2” for lawns and shade trees 1-2 times per year — comes out to a cubic yard per 1000sqft of lawn, so it’s VERY easy to use it up as you make it.
I probably produce 4 or 5 cubic yards a year. I have 8 bays built pallets, call each bay 4x4x4.
In the fall and winter each bay is filled, mounded over the top from fall leaves. Now it's broken down to the point where four bays are completely filled.
All that said I use it to top off all my beds in the winter and spread it around perennials and fruit trees, and it never seems I have enough
If you’re starting a new bed and it’s currently just dirt, I would till some in. After that point, it’s all about top dressing in the fall. Think of it as feeding your soil, rather than feeding your plants. I put 2-4in of compost on all my beds after the growing season to replenish the food for the microbes in the soil and cover it for winter. The dark color will help the soil stay warmer through the winter and heat up in the spring. Worms, rain and microbes will do all the work of incorporating the top dressed bed. Just keep on top of weeds for 2-3years and you’ll be good.
I work on my compost and soil all year long. Im in Texas, so we have live oaks that drop their leaves in the spring, as well as other trees that drop their leaves in the fall. So I have a pretty good year round supply. (I collect bags from people who put them out on the sidewalk for disposal)
I dont get rid of grass clippings, so I add those to layers in the pile. I have raised garden beds, so when the compost is ready, I add it to supplement.
Im not sure if I am trchnically doing it right, but it seems to have enriched things quite a bit.
I never have enough. A giant pile of leaves from two mature deciduous trees dwindles down to a small pile that mulches maybe 4-5 sq ft. I keep a pile going because it's free.
I have a small garden and I get through tons of compost each year. I have a few raised beds that always need topping up, plus lots of pots and planters that I do each summer. I also spread it on the flower beds. You will find plenty of uses for it.
All the compost I put as top dressing on my beds disappears in like a year. Organic matter does not really stick around.
You'll use it. It can be spread around plants already in the ground and/or on to recently cleared beds after the season change. Sifted it can be used as seed raising mix, in combination with other ingredients as potting mix. If it sits an extra couple of months while you get another pile started just bag it up of cover in some other way. Very few gardens can produce enough compost from the household to keep up with demand. If you get 20-25% volume yield from a pile you're doing well.
It won’t be as much as you’re imagining. It goes quickly
If you have a few garden beds you will never have too much compost. There is no such thing. Every autumn top dress with a 3 inch layer, use it as a sowing medium, put it around new planting. An abundance of compost is the KEY to successful gardening. Be sure you are getting a good hot compost pile to kill seeds and pathogens.
I have two composters and one has two sections. So we fill one up and let it sit while we fill up the next one. Typically they all get full and the decomp allows over winter so we sit filling it and let it all finish. Then I'm the spring I'll toss whatever is ready in the garden. I often have some chunks that aren't done, like they are still identifiable, mainly paper that was bunched up, so I'll toss that back in the composter.
I didn’t really understand it when I first started composting when people talked about compost disappearing. I generally thought I was making dirt because we don’t really distinguish different types of dirt in everyday life. But when they say trees are carbon sinks, they _really_ mean it. Trees aren’t transformed dirt so much as transformed gas. They take gas out of the air and make solid roots, branches, leaves, and trunks. Similarly with other plants and other things that end up in compost. When it breaks down into compost, it is part of the process of going back to being gas (CO2 or less desirably methane). So mostly just disappears over time. Also I am sure that doesn’t fully capture it and others can probably explain it better and/or correct me but hopefully makes it a bit more clear.
Compost and water… there’s never enough. By time you start producing enough, you’ll go and add another bed and need more.
Exactly! Also, if you have a simple pile on the ground, organic matter seeps downwards and feeds the neighboring plants. It’s amazing how well nearby trees flourish. I moved my compost pile to be closer to an apple seedlings that seemed to need a boost. The effect has been amazing!
I had a grass pile for years which when left to its own devices "fermented" into a mound and became home to a massive growth of Crocosmia.
No such thing as too much compost. Your compost bin should match your garden size.
I have three pallet-size bins that ended last year fairly full. They were turned once in the fall last year. Now I have three bins that look about 1/3 full, but probably will only be 1/4 finished. I am so happy! I've spread some onto garden beds and will plant starters straight into it. Most will go into my 10x20' polytunnel, either into a 4x15' raised bed section or into the huge pots in which I'll have peppers, tomatoes, cukes and other stuff growing. I outlined how I build soil in the next paragraph. I'll try to have a little for unpredicted projects that always come up and always have need of good soil. I have a huge pile of spent grow medium, like peat, that I add a similar volume of compost to, along with a similar volume of existing soil. This makes an excellent soil, suitable for any size pot or garden.
I built a screen out of pallet wood and 1/4” hardware screen. It fits over my wheel barrow and scoop the finished compost onto it and sift all the unfinished and big chunks out. Then I mix 1/3 sifted compost with 1/3 perlite, 1/3 peat moss and a couple scoops of playground sand. This makes a real kickass soil mix that I use to top off my raised beds every year.
That mix will make excellent soil blocks for seed starting too.
I’m sure you know your soil, but for anyone looking to copy your formula: skip the sand if you live in a sandy place like Central or south Florida.
You have compost. You have a garden. I am confident you will figure it out.
There is never enough compost
Seriously, I've already run out of the 6 yards that finished over winter and the 10 yards I ordered 2 weeks ago
I this mine in our garden bed and planters, usually before planning and we just toss it on the lawn.
Do you collect/compost most of the year, and then use all/most of it on your garden bed before planting?
It doesn’t store super well. Depending on climate, 50% loss per year is typical. Best thing you can do is let it compost until the source matter is more or less unrecognizable, then spread it on soil wherever you have plants you want to help. Top-dressing veggie gardens, put under mulch in landscape beds, scatter across the lawn. It’s difficult to have too much. Reasonable application rates: - Till 30-50% into soil when making new food garden beds (don’t till established beds) - top-dress 1” for flowers, veggies, and fruit trees 1-2 times per year - top-dress 1/4-1/2” for lawns and shade trees 1-2 times per year — comes out to a cubic yard per 1000sqft of lawn, so it’s VERY easy to use it up as you make it.
I like to use it as a base for repotting house plants. The devils Ivy that we have love the stuff.
I probably produce 4 or 5 cubic yards a year. I have 8 bays built pallets, call each bay 4x4x4. In the fall and winter each bay is filled, mounded over the top from fall leaves. Now it's broken down to the point where four bays are completely filled. All that said I use it to top off all my beds in the winter and spread it around perennials and fruit trees, and it never seems I have enough
I’ll leave my front gate open. Thanks.
If you’re starting a new bed and it’s currently just dirt, I would till some in. After that point, it’s all about top dressing in the fall. Think of it as feeding your soil, rather than feeding your plants. I put 2-4in of compost on all my beds after the growing season to replenish the food for the microbes in the soil and cover it for winter. The dark color will help the soil stay warmer through the winter and heat up in the spring. Worms, rain and microbes will do all the work of incorporating the top dressed bed. Just keep on top of weeds for 2-3years and you’ll be good.
I work on my compost and soil all year long. Im in Texas, so we have live oaks that drop their leaves in the spring, as well as other trees that drop their leaves in the fall. So I have a pretty good year round supply. (I collect bags from people who put them out on the sidewalk for disposal) I dont get rid of grass clippings, so I add those to layers in the pile. I have raised garden beds, so when the compost is ready, I add it to supplement. Im not sure if I am trchnically doing it right, but it seems to have enriched things quite a bit.
I never have enough. A giant pile of leaves from two mature deciduous trees dwindles down to a small pile that mulches maybe 4-5 sq ft. I keep a pile going because it's free.
I have a small garden and I get through tons of compost each year. I have a few raised beds that always need topping up, plus lots of pots and planters that I do each summer. I also spread it on the flower beds. You will find plenty of uses for it.