Reply To: Mysteries of compost

[JD]

Thanks so much guys. I thought I would get a duck with this one. Derek, that’s amazing and I would love to know more! I suppose the fungal preference for trees and perennials is because they’ve adapted to utilise their leaf mould/spent foliage from previous season(s) whereby the breakdown would be largely fungal by the time the plant came into growth again. Annuals probably opportunists after a ‘quick snack’ where they can get it, and maybe fungi are indications that there are tree canopies/competitors nearby?
I originally asked this after emptying one of my compost bins (trying to batch-compost to make as much as poss) and pondered the microbial mixture. I try to get it hot enough to kill seeds after my previous lot germinated over 1000 tomatoes, but not so hot that it kills off a lot of the good guys. Doesn’t always work, the batch I was emptying had got to 78 Celsius and I had struggled to cool it down!
Getting excited about next season to finally be able to put some ‘live’ compost on my beds instead of the largely depleted bagged stuff. Just got to try to remove most of the worms before spreading though or I’ll be plagued by moles again!
Thanks again
Jan