Making compost!

2 comments

I have been reading through the comments that were left to my previous two blogs. I think i’ve found a small space behind one of the greenhouses wher a bin might fit, won’t know for sure until i have measured one. Although it would be at the back of a greenhouse, it would not be tucked up in a corner because my garden is an “L” shape and the neighbours garden is the other side of a small fence behind the greenhouse, the bin should get quite a bit of sun on it which i would assume would help. Glad i’m not the only one that found some bad compost, now i know that it’s not just me that found lumps of cardboard in bought compost! Hopefully if the problem with that compost was just that westlands had bagged up the compost too soon, they will learn how to compost properly soon, although if they are selling it you would think they would have done that before they sold any!
Before I go to get a bin I do need to know how good the quality is likely to be, I suppose it depends on what I put in, but i have no actual garden with plants growing in it, there is only what is in the greenhouses. I don’t have a lot of food waste either as I live alone at the moment. There will be a lot of used compost that had the plants in this year, as I brush the compost from the tubers before starting them off again next year. I have always discarded that compost in the past to avoid any disease or bugs in the plants the next year, such as “vine weevil”.Obviously as all my plants are growing in pots they only have what I put in the pot to grow in meaning that i will need to mix something with it, perhaps multipurpose compost, I don’t know. I do need to use good quality compost if the Begonias are to win at the shows in future years. I would assume it will take a year or two to turn itself into useable compost?
Last year I used a different compost that had earth worm digested cow manure in it and bark, amongst other things. The year before i used multipurpse compost mixed with JI no2, and in the final potting added 3 to 1 of dried cow manure. If I am putting this years compost into this compost bin there will still be some of this years compost in next years (or the year afters however long it takes) but i would think that most of the goodness in that compost would have been taken by this years plants, therefore i will need to add to it (cow manure JI no 2, multipupose, whatever) I shall be trying to work that out.

• 30 Nov, 2007
• 1 like

More blog posts by marksbegonias