Re: Compost

**"* S* <m*@gmail.com>**

Sounds like you are making top quality compost between your wormery and the
leaf mold. The other compost, the more casual one, is obviously fine for the
garden, too. What I mean by quality is a compost with balanced levels of
nutrients, including trace elements, a pH about 6.5, very few weed seeds or
pathogens, and no phytotoxic compounds. Very often, composts are poisonous
to plants until they have cured--that's why you let them sit for three
months after you have finished making them. And that is what the cress test
determines--an unfinished compost kills cress seedlings on or shortly after
emergence.

On a home level, I make a very haphazard pile--it takes a long time to
mature because I don't pay much attention to ratios of this and that and I
rarely turn it. But it eventually gets there. Right now, it's growing a few
avocados; until the frost a few weeks ago, it had a nice mango on one edge.
I was leaving it there, just as I am leaving the avocados, out of some kind
of perversity. Soon thought, I will be industrious and turn it and destroy
the trees.

Miranda

On Jan 14, 2008 1:03 PM, Kathryn Marsh <kmarsh@iol.ie> wrote:

> Just wondering what is meant by quality in this context. In my
> younger days I built perfectly constructed piles as homes for
> thermophilic bacteria and they duly heated, were turned and watered
> etc, etc. The result was a fairly small amount of quickly made weed
> free compost that needed at least six months before the soil life was
> really happy there - though at least I never got weed seeds in my
> sowing mixes.  A bit embarrassing the time I was building heaps in a
> hurry and got distracted by need to do the paperwork for an up and
> coming organic inspection. Forgot to water pile. Pile went up in
> flames during inspection.
>
> These days I throw in whatever organic material happens to come to
> hand whenever it comes to hand, spread it evenly across the heap,
> water it if it seems dry and don't bother much. With this haphazard
> method I get a lot more compost and some of the weed seeds survive.
> Some of the flower seeds survive as well so there's often all sorts
> of interesting things emerging in my seed trays and across the
> garden. My plants seem to like it. I don't use much of it as a sowing
> medium though because I make leaf mould heaps separately, watering
> them well when I've gathered them and then covering them and
> forgetting for a couple of years. All my kitchen waste that doesn't
> have seeds is fed, along with shredded newspaper to the inhabitants
> of my wormery. This gets mixed with the leafmould as sowing compost
> or, with a higher ratio of worm casts, as potting compost.
>
> kathryn
>
>
>
> On 14 Jan 2008, at 17:07, Miranda Smith wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > Yes, the way that you compost determines the quality of the finished
> > project. I've done enough research, complete with testing all the way
> > through and at the time that it was stockpiled for curing, 3 months
> > after
> > that time, and 6 months after that, to know that is so--the
> > "formal" way,
> > with or without composters in tuxedos and tiaras, gives the highest
> > quality
> > product.
> >
> > But there is a huge caveat. Unless you are using the compost as a
> > disease
> > suppressant, in greenhouse containers or starting mixes, or composting
> > something smelly in a suburban environment, does improved quality
> > matter
> > enough to inspire you to monitor the piles every day and adjust
> > accordingly?
> > I don't think so. For ordinary uses, sloppy compost works fine--as
> > long as
> > it's really broken down. And you can tell that with a simple "cress
> > test."
> > Before you buy compost, do a cress test with it: take a sample,
> > plant land
> > cress in it--no additives like peat moss or vermiculite--and see
> > how they
> > do. If they are fine, you can use it in starting mixes. If not, you
> > know
> > that it requires a few more months of curing before it is safe to
> > use for
> > sensitive applications.
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > Miranda
> >
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