[Kleftiwallah]

I have a quantity of excellent dark brown/black crumbly compost after opening up my bin.  Never been turned, just added to over a few years, sieved it and stored.  Now to the question, there is sufficient for all my seed sowing needs do I use it 'neat' or add some other substance?

Over to you knowledgeable peeps.     Cheers,  Tony.

[strangerachael]

You'll probably find quite a few weeds popping up in it. Commercial seed composts are sterilised to prevent this. I believe you can do your own in small batches in the microwave but I'm not sure how exactly. Alternatively you could blast the surface with a gas weed burner if you can do it without melting the container! Also, it is probably a bit rich for sowing seeds, they don't need too much nutrient, you could mix with some sieved leaf mould and maybe a little sharp sand.

[ilan]

You could try to steralise it in an old cooking pot with water and steam it,But its not worth the effort most composts seem to have a water retention element home made composts just dry out to fast .

[Yorkie]

I agree with strangerachael - good practice is not to use home made compost for seed sowing.  Mainly because it's not sterilised and therefore the risks of damping off or other diseases are much higher, but also for the weed competition.

[Growster...]

It's always great stuff to look at when just dug out isn't it.

Perhaps for the cost of a few bags of bought compost for new seedlings, I'd prefer to use our own compost as a soil conditioner, in a place where I can easily hoe the weed seeds which will always be there; (and the tomatoes, nasturtiums, courgettes etc..;0)

(It's odd, even just writing the word 'seedlings' in November, evokes so much hope for the next year...)

[sunshineband]

It's always great stuff to look at when just dug out isn't it.

Perhaps for the cost of a few bags of bought compost for new seedlings, I'd prefer to use our own compost as a soil conditioner, in a place where I can easily hoe the weed seeds which will always be there; (and the tomatoes, nasturtiums, courgettes etc..;0)

(It's odd, even just writing the word 'seedlings' in November, evokes so much hope for the next year...)

Yes I agree. I have used home made compost as a potting on medium, when it is fairly easy to pull out the variety of pop-ups that appear, but for seed sowing would shy away from it really.

[compostqueen]

This is the best of jobs     I have a rotary sieve and would blend in a bit of sharp sand or bonfire ash (no nasty plastics natch!), and some leaf mould if you have some - If not,  get some started!      if you have a bit of spent grow bag  you could add it.  You don't  need much of it if you sow direct.  You can just line the row with it.  I have tried cooking small trays of it in the micro, short blast on thermonuclear.  Smells earthy 😊   

I use it for topping raised beds and don't worry about seedlings cropping up.  It seems mostly to be tomatoes which are easily hoiked out

I love kitchen compost best ☺

[Growster...]

Old grow bags are great for growing carrots in buckets!

Still got two ready for munching...

[Kleftiwallah]

Thanks to all those knowlegeable replies, it's going onto the raised beds in the greenhouse for more scrummy beafsteak tom's.  Cheers,  Tony.