Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: hiccup on March 18, 2018, 08:41
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Morning All
I have finally made a decent batch of compost, but now I have it, i'am not sure
how best to use it. I was thinking of a handful under each plant as I plant out,
but will that be to rich ? I dont know. Any tips would be warmly welcomed.
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Home made compost is not that rich in nutrients.
I find it is more useful in adding humus and structure to your soil.
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Spread a good layer over the beds & plant directly into it.
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I can usually make 2-3 cubic metres of compost each year and use it all over the garden. Because I grow a lot of stuff in containers as well I find it makes a very good addition to the potting mix. Sometimes I riddle it and sometimes use it straight, depending on what I'm growing.. Riddled and mixed with sharp sand, a little topsoil and some BFB it makes a perfect growing medium for container carrots and parsnips.
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In early spring, each of my fruit bushes/ trees/ grapes get a big pile of compost at the root: just on top of the soil. (Keep your original bud open of the fruit trees)
I don't know if it is not very rich but they seem to like it a lot. It is mixed with the hemp cuts (and chicken manure) from the chicken coop.
The rest of it is just spread over the garden, a bit depending on what is growing there: beans don't like very rich soil..
My back yard used to be on heavy clay and it would loosen stuff up a bit.
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I can usually make 2-3 cubic metres of compost each year and use it all over the garden. Because I grow a lot of stuff in containers as well I find it makes a very good addition to the potting mix. Sometimes I riddle it and sometimes use it straight, depending on what I'm growing.
I use it to fill my 3 raised beds. Each year I empty one out completely (in rotation) and use the contents to fill 20 potato bags. The empty bed then gets refilled with straight compost. After the potatoes are dug up the 3 year old compost is used to mulch raspberries, blackcurrents, gooseberries, rhubarb, fruit trees and roses :D
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I can usually make 2-3 cubic metres of compost each year and use it all over the garden. Because I grow a lot of stuff in containers as well I find it makes a very good addition to the potting mix. Sometimes I riddle it and sometimes use it straight, depending on what I'm growing.
I use it to fill my 3 raised beds. Each year I empty one out completely (in rotation) and use the contents to fill 20 potato bags. The empty bed then gets refilled with straight compost. After the potatoes are dug up the 3 year old compost is used to mulch raspberries, blackcurrents, gooseberries, rhubarb, fruit trees and roses :D
Hmm, that sounds like a lot of work?
A lady at our garden club has won the members only heaviest potato crop 2 years consecutively by growing her competition potato(supplied, in a potato grow bag,also supplied) by a long chalk!!
I’m going down the route of no dig more & more. I also make between 2 & 3 cubic meters of compost a year so that is all just going on as a mulch from now on rather than being rotovated in or hand dug in. I also add lots of stable manure & that will be going on top or going in the bins as & when.
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Hmm, that sounds like a lot of work?
It keeps the hubby fit :lol: and my raised beds disease free! I grow my brassicas in the bed scheduled for emptying next and my potatoes get lovely 3 year old compost. I am simply rotating the soil rather than the crops and it is all for free :D