Grow Your Own Magazine

Our dalek compost bin is almost completely full, at the bottom is some very brown material some of which looks like grass still but rotted (OH keeps dumping loads of grass clippings in it when I'm not looking). I wouldn't want to use it for potting on anything but wonder if I could use it to dig into my soil, I have clay soil and some areas really need some compost and sand dug in to break it up a bit or should I just err on the safe side and buy some big bags of compost and use that.

Sounds to me that the stuff in the bin is only partly decomposed. The finished item looks like dark rich soil.

But I think it is ok to use in soil improvement so long as you don't mind it continuing to decompose in the soil. Some people do it this way all the time - it's jus that their plots look a bit untidy.

A friend of mine just used to tip kitchen peelings straight onto the found in his flower beds, until some peelings rooted and he ended up with a bumper crop of spuds - from peelings!

__________________
it's written in the wind that we're two, carved out in the sand that we're real,
it's lit up in the stars that we're true, we're destined in the sky to be glad
Paul Weller
http://johntygreentoes.blogspot.com/

No, use the compost you have made - if it is basically black, smells good enough to eat and is well rotted it will make excellent soil improver!

In any event, it won't hurt the compost if you turn it all out, stir it around and tip it all back in, that sort of mixing is supposed to be quite good for it. Never done it myself, but the books say you should.

Someone with more knowledge will be along soon to put me in my place.

Good luck

Terry

Thanks, the very bottom layer looks like crumbly soil so I might just take that out. I think it really needs to be turned and some brown matter put in (he'd put another load of grass in yesterday!) - we may need to move it when putting the greenhouse up so that would solve the problem.

I'll have a close inspection at some point this week.