I thought I’d share this photo of my amazingly crumbly homemade compost this week. I’m so pleased with it, and have just used it to top up a 4m x 2m raised bed. It’s looking good, and I can’t wait to get the plants in now.
It’s been a bit of a double whammy too – I originally had the wood chip delivered by a tree surgeon, and used it to cover all the pathways in my veg garden. It did well there for a couple of years, and then needed to be replaced, so I scraped it all up into one big pile to compost down. That was last spring. Now, it has broken down really well, and is the perfect consistency for growing veggies.
I did make an error, in that I put the pile in a spot that was too close to some bindweed, so this has been a pain to deal with. I just spent the last few weeks slowly sifting through my compost, pulling out all the bits of bindweed root that I found. Still, it just makes me love my compost more.
I know there will be some weeds in it, but the texture is such that I’ll be able to easily hoe them off every few days, which should keep the whole bed pretty weed free. I’ve got another 2 beds to go, and think that the pile I had should easily cover them. It’s proved a very cost-efficient way of topping up beds with a significant amount of compost, as well as providing me with wood chip for the paths initially. £20-£40 for a couple of loads of wood chip vs £80-£100 for a load of compost.