Comost

[Debby]

I have a 1 to 2 yr old compost pile and it is still recognizeable. It's far away from my house and i have thrown dirt in with it and relied on rain water. Didn't work very well huh? What can I do to this pile so I can have compost next spring? and has anyone ever used the paper out of their office paper shredder? I've been thinking about doing that but I'm afraid it will stay paper!!!!

[Debby]

Well no wonder i can't make it! I can't even spell it!!! :oops:

[CaptainCompostAL]

Why do you think it is not ready yet?
If the pile is over a year old, and it doesn't stink, it's not hot or warm, fairly homogeneous to the eyes, and very dark in color, use it now in your garden or lawn.

Mature compost doesn't have to look like humus, or be black to work. Humus is the ultimate end of compost. It is black and looks like dirt.
My compost never gets totally black, but it does get dark brown. Mostly leaf based composts get blacker than say horse manure/sawdust based composts like mine. I can make and sell mature compost in 1-2 months, but it takes me 6-12 months to make 100% humus.

I use hot processed, 2-4 week old, mature compost all the time as a mulch all over my no-till beds all year round.

[Debby]

well that's about what it looks like, I guess I thought it was going to stand up and tell me it was composted! :oops: Maybe I was expecting it to look store bought. I did go turn it earlier, It's mainly shedded leaves w/ a few other household items. It's hard to remember now. But I did recognize some papers i threw in but didn't shred. I guess I could pull them out.
do I just spread it out over my lawn? I have horrendous yellow clay soil except for the top soil we have added over the years.

[CaptainCompostAL]

Keep in mind, my friend, that most store bought compost has been screened and prettified to look black, soft, and pleasing to most gardening folk in our culture today. In reality, nature does not need screened, pretty looking compost in order to do all the amazing tasks that compost does in the soil, or in compost teas.

I never screen my compost for my personal garden, or even for my customers. I just put the large, bulky chunks back into the starter pile. The earthworms don't care what mature compost looks like. (LOL)

[Gar]

Debby,
The good Captain is correct. The worms don't care if it is finished or not. Whether my compost is ready or not, when it is time to till the garden in the fall or spring, I till it in. It will finish breaking down in the garden. I, like the Captain, will put the big chunks in the other bin for further composting and breaking down. It also acts like a 'compost started' for the next batch. I never sell my compost, so I don't care what it looks like. Some of it still looks like the grass when it was put in, but now it is brown.
Remember that compost is the best fertilizer, and the plants don't care if it is a finished product or not.

[Kathe Kitchens]

Well, now you guys have me pondering. :? I have seen the results of unfinished compost in beds; unwanted weeds and/or plants, "burn" on plants, toxins from incompletely composted material affecting growth, etc. The whole point of using the finished compost is that is has biodegraded toxins and unwanted bacteria, correct? Putting unfinished compost on the top of soil and allowing it to finish and wash down is one way to deal with this but tilling it in brings back the potential problems I described above... Comments?

[Debby]

I'm soooo embarrassed! It's been compost for forever and i din't even know it!!!!

[Dchall_San_Antonio]

Tilling? Got my attention, now. But first since this is about compost...

Compost should be finished before use. Yes, I know that people have been using raw manure for eons, but now that we know better, we should compost it.

Compost is finished when it smells fantastic. I went to the manure beds behind my daughter's riding stables this week to get some finished stuff for the potted plants around the stables. I went to the oldest stuff. It has been sitting there totally unmolested since over a year ago. It looked identical in color and quality to the fresh stuff they were hauling out. But boy did is smell great! It was finished.

The beneficial microbes in compost will eat the pathogenic microbes as well as decompose chemicals that might be in the raw materials.

Now as for tilling, please refrain from tilling. All tilling does is destroy the tilth the microbes had built into the soil. It turns that desireable crumb structure to dust and kills off the fungi digging into the soil with their hyphae. A better way is to mow off your crop and leave it to decompose. Then plant hairy vetch or some legume that absorbs nitrogen from the air and mow that off for the real crop growing season.

[CaptainCompostAL]

Another idea is lasagne gardening. In this type of garden bed design you can grow any transplants or seeds through a series of alternating greens and browns, or unfinished compost mounds, then the top 2" at least should be totally mature compost or rich garden dirt to guarantee good seed germination.

What I do is feed these lasagne style, no-till beds, plenty of liquid organic aerobic teas. This will give the growing plants all the available nutrients they need now, while supplying all the beneficial aerobic microbes necessary in the soil and in the decomposing mulch pile, to form humus and topsoil later as the season goes on.

This works great. Yes, all the oldest mature compost should be placed on the bottom of all planting holes, if you got it, but there is nothing wrong with using slightly immature compost as a mulch on top of the soil.