Municipal Compost?

[JDParticipant]

Following Charles advice to mulch my new allotment to a depth of 6 inches, I bought a few trial bags marked ‘farmyard manure’. On opening these appear to be 90% chipped wood! Not good. From reading some of Charles books on his compost comparison it seems his experience of municipal compost is also mainly wood and performs the worst in his compost trials. Obviously I have to use something to mulch the beds with and currently am unaware of a supplier of aged cow manure. I just wondered what other people’s experience of using municipal compost was and whether anyone had had really great results from using it or whether it usually takes several months to ‘get going’. Sadly, in my area, the council’s contractor doesn’t deliver either.

[StringfellowParticipant]

Difficult to measure here as I used it with other composts too. I found that the season after it was spread it breaks down in to a lovely fine compost that creates a good tilth; could work well for sowing carrots and parsnips; just an idea.

I think it has some value to improving fertility.

[charlesModerator]

JD it’s some and some, the compost quality depends who made it and how old it is.
5 years ago I had the same experience as you, buying “farmyard manure” to find woody compost. V dishonest.
As Tris says, it’s good, eventually.
I would use it 50%, with animal manures underneath.
Incidentally you don’t need 6in if your weeds are under control. For a start out, 2-4in is good, on weeded or lightly-weedy soil.

[JDParticipant]

It IS weedy. I’m the one with the overgrown allotment with several trenches, 6 feet away from the oak tree (and roots) and 7 feet away from the prairie field of rape.Think I’ve dug out all the brambles now but not sure what else is under there. Since discovered the soil is sandy and stony too. Oh joy. No wonder people kept giving it up. However, I’m determined to succeed….
Just wish I’d got some aged manure so I might get some success the first part of the year. Anybody got good initial results with municipal compost?

[charlesModerator]

You like a challenge.
It depends how aged the compost is. For me, some batches have worked well from the start, others take time to decompose some more in situ, results are always good in the end.

[JDParticipant]

Thanks for your advice guys.
Just got to work out how I can gather a few tons of compost from the recycling centre about 12 miles away…. without a trailer! As you say, I like a challenge!
J

[ruth nobleParticipant]

The other alternative is to get used mushroom compost which you can normally get for free but i guess transport would still be a problem, assuming that there is a mushroom grower near you.

[JDParticipant]

Hi Ruth,
Yes I thought of that but I’m not aware of one in the local area. It seems to be all wheat, barley and rape around here with the very occasional field of maize, presumably for biofuel. Thanks for your input anyway.

On the positive side we managed to get to the recycling centre today to collect some municipal compost. When I stuck a thermometer in it in situ the reading was 60 degrees. Pretty fresh then. We took some anyway.
I also managed to find a farm with beef cows and on speaking to the manager he said they might have a little bit of year-old manure left which could possibly be delivered (yippee!) before Christmas. If this happens my question is this. I’m assuming that these composts are both too young to be spread on the ground, so would I be better to put down a thin layer of the woody manure from the trial bags, then cover it in cardboard and then cover that with the woven weed membrane I already have for a few months? If I stack the composts when do you think I may be able to use them? Or alternatively would it be better to mix them together and/or feed them in thin layers into my general compost heap? Also do you think adding some chicken manure pellets and/or seaweed meal would improve the situation or make them be usable faster? Sorry that’s a lot of questions but I’m just trying to plant asap.
Thank you.

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