Getting the Most from Your Compost Heap

You may remember that a few months ago, I flirted with the idea of QR composting (am still flirting with it, in fact) and was fascinated by the whole concept. Well, Andy Davenport who wrote Quick Return Compost Making has agreed to write some guest posts for me!

So the next six weeks will be Compost Wednesday on allotment blog - and if you send in questions I'll pass them to Andy to answer, or you can just make a comment and he'll give us some feedback. Here's post number one!

Making a successful compost heap is probably one of the gardening activities that most conscientious gardeners have high on their list of priorities. After the necessary efforts, there is a certain sense of pride and triumph when you finally get to run your fingers through lovely, cool, dark compost. It is especially rewarding when you think about what went into the compost bin and how you have worked with nature to produce such a wonderful commodity – and it’s totally free!

But this really is just the tip of the iceberg. Good fertile compost such as that made using the Quick Return (QR) method, can literally transform the nature of a garden. By adding the compost to our soils many radical changes can take place benefiting every living creature that exists in the garden (including us) and every plant that has the good fortune to grow there.

The soil in our garden is predominantly heavy clay and when we first arrived there about 8 years ago the borders were pretty difficult to work. However, with the addition of a yearly mulch of QR compost the soil has become loose and friable and this penetrates many inches down - and that is without digging. All manner of creatures including birds, small mammals and worms all help by doing the job for us. Our soil doesn’t get heavy anymore and is very free draining and yet it doesn’t need as much watering. Not only does the soil have greater water holding properties but plant roots are able to penetrate the soil more easily and thoroughly allowing them to extract greater reserves of moisture during drought conditions. We all know that water drains down through soils but compost fed soils also allow water to move laterally through the soil- this can be a tremendous help to plants under cloches for example which can take up moisture without the need for lifting the cloche to water.

Weeding must be the most disliked job in the garden – sometimes enough to actually put people off gardening. But with the nice loose soil structure created by the addition of compost the weeds can be pulled out with ease – roots and all. Suddenly, weeding becomes quite a pleasure, especially when you add them to the compost heap, knowing that they are full of minerals that will be returned to the soil in the future. If the compost is applied as a nice thick mulch and renewed on a regular basis then weed seeds are suppressed and don’t get the chance to germinate. Mulching also has the added benefit of helping to retain moisture within the soil.

As more compost is applied to the soil over the years it becomes darker and darker. This helps the soil to warm up and can extend the growing season. Dark soil acts like a big heat sink - particularly under glass. Cloches and compost fed soil go hand in hand.

Probably the most important thing we can get from compost is our health. Bacteria and other micro organisms abound and flourish in the compost and in turn in the soil where it is added. These organisms are the building blocks of life and the beginnings of the food webs that exist in the soil. Their abundance, health and vitality is paramount to the health and vitality of all the plants and animals that exist within the ecosystem in the garden. Quite simply this health means greater resistance to pests and disease. In our own interest, we can inherit this health and robustness when we eat the fruit, vegetables and herbs grown in our compost garden.

Labels: allotment-compost, compost, quick-return-compost