home-made compost vs shop bought compost

[queen of the cobs]

Morning all,

Does anyone else use their home-made compost for potting compost? I know that shop-bought compost is artificially enriched, but I tend to pot up pretty quickly so I'm sure my seedlings don't strip the compost that quickly.

I've been advised to mix half and half, but that sounds like a compromise solution to me! Since I've got all my pots and labels and trays etc, and since I've swapped for a lot of my seeds this year, and managed to scrounge some pallets for a compost bin, I was wondering if I could make this the year when it actually was cheaper to grow than to buy!

[Mike and Louise]

We well are making our own compost this year. We have never done it before so not sure how it will turn out, but if it looks and smells OK then we would rather use that instead of shop brought compost.

[Flummery]

It's a case of horses for courses. I'd never use home made for seed raising - it's not sterile and you'd never know if what came up was really what you sowed or what was still viable in the compost. I use mine for mulching and enriching the beds. It's brill round gross feeders like blackcurrant ans rhubarb and it good for bean beds/trenches. I still buy compost for sowing and potting on.

[SueA]

I use homemade compost as a mulch & for earthing up potatoes & topping up the veg. bed & occasionally mixed with bought compost to pot things up. As Flummery says it's not usually suitable for sowing seeds in but you could probably get away with using for established plants in pots. It takes quite a while to break down into a usable state though, I leave mine about a year to 18 months before using it.