HOW TO USE YOUR COMPOST
There are two main ways to use your homemade compost: on the soil or in the soil. If you use it as a mulch on the surface, it will help to retain soil moisture and keep down weeds. Worms will then gradually incorporate it into your soil, enriching it as a result. Spread a layer 5cm deep in spring, while the soil is still moist and before the majority of weed seedlings emerge. Do this annually and you’ll be astonished at the improvement in the nature of your soil over time.
On the veg patch or allotment, dig your garden compost into the ground (or lay it on the surface if you’re a ‘no digger’) at any time between winter and spring, before sowing and planting begins. Also dig as much of it as you can spare into any newly created flowerbeds or borders. Coupled with a sprinkling of general organic fertiliser, such as blood, fish and bonemeal, it’s a matchless form of soil enrichment that improves soil structure, texture, micro-bacterial activity and overall fertility.
Clay soil will become more workable and its drainage improved by the addition of garden compost as the years go by. Sandy soils will retain moisture and nutrients more readily. And the plants in either of these extremes of soil structure will benefit hugely, growing well and being better able to withstand the vicissitudes of our weather as well as pests and diseases.
Make a potting mix
Once garden compost is well rotted down, you can sieve it and mix it with good quality topsoil to make your own potting compost for containers. But a word of caution here – I prefer to use it in large outdoor containers rather than in small pots in the house or greenhouse, because in such concentrated areas, the activity of any pathogens or pests it may contain, such as vine weevils, will be more keenly felt. Still, as long as your compost heated up to a sufficient degree, the chances are that many pathogens will have been eliminated anyway.
So if you’re happy to take a chance and are keen to be self-sufficient when it comes to organic enrichment, do give it a try. Although I suggest you experiment on a small scale before committing yourself wholeheartedly.
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