Compost and Feeding

Home Vegetable Gardening

Course 1 · Chapter 3 · Compost and Feeding: Heaps, Manure, Mulch and Fertilisers

Chapter 2 showed that organic matter improves almost every soil. This chapter covers where to get it: how to make compost, how to use manure and mulch, and when a bought fertiliser is worth using. The idea throughout is to feed the soil first and the plants second.

Making Compost

Compost is plant material broken down by bacteria, fungi and worms into a dark, crumbly, sweet-smelling material. A good heap needs a balance of two kinds of ingredient, plus air and moisture.

Kind	Examples	Role
"Greens" (wet, nitrogen-rich)	Vegetable peelings, grass clippings, weeds before seeding, coffee grounds	Fuel the microbes; heat the heap
"Browns" (dry, carbon-rich)	Cardboard, scrunched paper, straw, dry leaves, woody prunings	Add bulk and air; stop sliminess

A rough starting guide is about equal volumes of each, or a little more brown than green (check). Too many greens make a wet, smelly heap; too many browns make it slow and dry.

Hot heap

Built all at once in a pile of about a cubic metre and turned. Fast (a few months) but needs effort.

Cold heap

Added to a little at a time in a bin. Slow (often a year or more) and easy. The usual choice for a home plot.

Keep these out Cooked food, meat, fish and dairy attract rats and flies. Dog and cat waste carries disease. Perennial weed roots and diseased plants may survive a cold heap, so bin or burn them instead (check).

Troubleshooting

Sign	Likely cause	Fix
Wet, smelly, slimy	Too many greens; too little air	Mix in cardboard or straw; turn it
Dry, nothing happening	Too many browns; too dry	Add greens and water; cover
Ants	Heap too dry	Moisten it

Manure and Other Organic Materials

Animal manure from horses, cows or chickens is rich in nutrients and organic matter, but it must be well rotted, usually stored for at least six months, before use. Fresh manure can burn roots and may carry weed seeds (check). Chicken manure is much stronger than horse or cow manure and is best composted first. Leaf mould, made by stacking fallen leaves in a bin for a year or two, is a superb soil conditioner but contains few nutrients.

Ask where it came from If you collect manure or straw from a stable or farm, ask whether the animals were fed on, or the fields sprayed with, weedkillers that persist. These can damage tomatoes, potatoes and beans even after rotting (check).

Mulch

A mulch is a layer, typically 5 to 8 cm thick (check), spread over the soil surface. It holds in moisture, suppresses weeds, protects soil from heavy rain and, if organic, feeds the soil as worms pull it down.

Best time: spring, onto moist, warm soil, after weeding.
Materials: garden compost, well-rotted manure, leaf mould, straw (good around strawberries and potatoes), grass clippings in thin layers.
Keep it off stems: leave a small gap around each plant so slugs and rot are not encouraged.

Fertilisers

If the soil is well fed with organic matter, many crops need little else. Hungry crops (potatoes, brassicas, courgettes, tomatoes) may still benefit from extra feeding. Fertiliser labels show an N-P-K ratio: nitrogen for leaf growth, phosphorus for roots, potassium for flowers and fruit.

Type	Examples	Speed	Notes
Organic, slow	Blood, fish and bone; pelleted chicken manure; bonemeal	Slow	Feeds soil life too; hard to overdo
Organic, liquid	Comfrey or nettle feed, seaweed extract	Fast	Good boost; comfrey is high in potassium (check)
Synthetic	Granular general fertiliser, tomato feed	Fast	Follow label rates; easy to overdo

# A simple feeding calendar for a small plot
Late winter  spread 5 cm of compost or rotted manure on empty beds
Spring       rake in a general fertiliser at the label rate
              -> mulch once soil is warm and moist
Early summer hungry crops: liquid feed every 1-2 weeks
              -> tomatoes, courgettes, beans in pots
Autumn       dig or mulch in leaf mould; sow a green manure
              -> clover or mustard to cover bare soil

More is not better Too much nitrogen gives lush leaves that attract aphids and slugs and can delay fruit. Always follow the label and water in well.

Signs of hunger Pale yellowing older leaves often point to a nitrogen shortage; purplish leaves to phosphorus; scorched leaf edges to potassium (check). Treat these as clues, not diagnoses: water stress, cold and disease look similar.

Not Yet Verified, and Sources

Source. Written from general knowledge of gardening; no specific source was read. Nothing is quoted from a text.
Marked (check). The greens-to-browns ratio, manure rotting times, persistent weedkiller warning, mulch depth, comfrey claim and nutrient deficiency signs. Verify against local gardening advice or fertiliser labels.

Exercises

Exercise 1

List everything you throw away in a week that could go in a compost bin. Sort it into greens and browns, note what must stay out, and say whether the mix needs more of either.

→ Solution

Exercise 2

A friend's compost heap is wet, smells bad and has flies. Diagnose the likely causes and write the steps to rescue it.

→ Solution

Exercise 3

Using your soil record from Chapter 2 and your three first crops, write a feeding plan for the year: what organic matter you will add and when, where you will mulch, and which crops (if any) get fertiliser.

→ Solution

Quick Reference

Compost: balance greens and browns, keep moist and airy
Keep out: cooked food, meat, dairy, pet waste, diseased plants
Manure: well rotted only (about six months or more)
Mulch: 5 to 8 cm in spring on moist soil, clear of stems
N-P-K: leaves, roots, flowers and fruit
Rule: feed the soil first; follow fertiliser labels

Coming next Chapter 4 covers seeds and sowing: reading seed packets, germination, sowing indoors and outdoors, and thinning.