Bulk Buying Compost

[PlotOfMine]

Hello!

Does anyone know of a good source of bulk compost? Preferably local, I'm in surrey. I'm looking for at least a tonne.

I've googled, but they all seem crazy expensive.

Thanks!

Jen


Blogging about my growing space and the things I learn during my time as a Kitchen Garden Trainee at www.itsavegetablelife.com

[Two_Sheds]

What's it for, and why do you need so much?

[PlotOfMine]

I want to try the method I read about in Charles Dowding's book The Vegetable Course. So I'm gonna mark out the beds on my allotment and cover them in a thick mulch of compost. and I think it would cost a fortune to just buy lots of bags of compost.


Blogging about my growing space and the things I learn during my time as a Kitchen Garden Trainee at www.itsavegetablelife.com

[Alison]

If it's something you want to try then why don't you just do it on a couple of beds and see how it goes. That way you'll not have to spend as much and you can weigh up how well it has worked.

I've not read the book but are you talking about potting compost or garden compost? I mulch every year with my own garden compost which is made up for free from the remains of stuff out the garden and is full of nutrients etc.

[Two_Sheds]

I want to try the method I read about in Charles Dowding's book ... thick mulch of compost.

There's nothing but good things about mulch, unless you're hoping to do it all in the one go, like you are, and then it's expensive.

Also MPC isn't what you want ~ it's too light & fluffy (usually) for filling beds. It's good for seedlings, but for veg beds you want something soil based, eg John Innes No.3

There's no cheap way of filling those beds: if you buy cheap topsoil it's likely to be full of rubble & weed seeds.

Unless
You get your head around lasagne beds. You don't have to fill your beds to the top all at once, but if you want to, lasagne is the way to go. You can do the final top layer with bought compost so it all looks neat & tidy, and the top layer is then weed free.

I did them at school: https://www.flickr.com/photos/miss-c...57626340887451 because top soil was going to be £100 a bed.

[alldigging]

Doesn't he talk about cow muck?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSKHHPHlfzk


Somewhere like Altys does bulk ordering of stuff, but you might want to look at spent mushroom compost but it's still about £30 a ton I think

[Kristen]

Does your local Council Recycle sell composted plant waste? Sometimes that is cheap/free if you collect it yourself.