Compost
Posted: Sunday 2 July, 2006
We bought multipurpose compost from Homebase. Nothing grows in it. The plants don't die, they just stay exactily the same size. Dan planted four wee lettuces in a pot of the compost and, I swear, three weeks later, they were exactly the same size. Also French Marigolds and a wee climber that Dan'd mum grew from seed - last year the plants were rampant. This year, they have three leaves.
Bizarre.
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Comments
Scott Holtzman
We have had much success with our home brewed batches. I started with vermin-composting this winter and as we progressed into late winter/early spring I've expanded our composting to chicken manure. Outside of the bounty of eggs we now get, each chicken produces an average of 1 cubic ft. of manure a month. Combine that with a 30:1 ratio of carbon matter (wood chips) heat & turn. Black gold for next years crops. We have 13 chickens so over the course of 10 months, that's...well, that's allot!
Stef
Due to poor performance of bought compost I have now decided to produce my own. I have just ordered 500 composting worms (tiger worms/brandlings) from slipperysuckers.co.uk which should turn into thousands during the next months. I have tons of chicken manure, quail bedding etc which currently goes into the black bins (what a waste!). I have heard from many people that vermicomposting is the fastest and most effective way of producing your own high quality compost. Wish me luck :-)
Molly
compost can have little to no nitrogen in it. It improves the tilth of the soil, makes it healthier all around, but unless there was a large percentage of manure or nitrogen bearing veg matter, it's not fertile enough for growing things by itself.
Dan
We've always tended to use our own compost as a soil conditioner and nothing else. Maybe we should try using it for potting on as well...
Stef, we did try worms a couple of years back, but we never really got going with them and in the end liberated them into one of the bins. We've still got the wormery, so might try again.
Scott, we do compost our chicken manure from the hen's ark, but since they free-range it's not possible to get the full benefit. Sounds likes you've got it down pat though.
Comments are now closed for this post.
peter costello
Friday 14 July, 2006 at 3:57pm
if the compost is organic i have had several years of poor performance and now am forced to buy non-organic or make up my own from my heap. i read recently monty don feels the same.shame really.