Home Composting
What is Home Composting About?
Home composting is a fun way to save money and become eco friendly at the same time. You can compost your garden rubbish and / or your kitchen waste into quality peat free compost for your garden.
Welcome to the Garden Guru!
You will find lots of useful information on compost, composting and all things grow your own, from hints and tips to step by step how to guides on all sorts of interesting subjects.
Browse through all our garden guru's articles below to find the subject you are interested in.
If the article you are looking for is not here, just ask The Compost Shop Garden Guru and he will get back to you as quickly as possible with the answers you are looking for!
Composting & Organic Compost
The Compost Shop is one of the largest compost and composting accessories suppliers in the country, supplying organic compost products to the public, trade and to sports pitches and golf courses across the UK.
We supply peat free organic composts to all parts of the UK, delivery of compost and other products is generally available next day!! You can even book a delivery date and time and get quotes emailed to you.
Benefits of Compost
Benefits of Using Compost
Organic matter in soil is essential for soil structure, water holding properties, microbial activity and soil health. Read on to find out more benefits.
Composts can be used to add organic matter to soils and increase the production of soils through many benefits:
- reduction in soil compaction and improvement in soil water holding capacity.
- better soil structure leading to greater workability of soil and increased traffic tolerance.
- increased microbial activity and beneficial to soil.
- improved root growth and reduced root diseases giving better plant survival and growth with improved plant quality.
- reduced nutrient leaching and increased nutrient levels with a reduced need for costly fertilisers.
- increased soil cation exchange capacity.
- increased yielding potential.
- plant disease suppression giving better plant survival and growth with improved plant quality.
- reduced erosion risk with reduced capping.
- microorganisms to aid soil aggregation and nutrient recycling.
- increased soil temperatures.
- reduction in plant deaths.
You can buy quality organic soil improvers from us, just click on our products page and to get prices, all our prices include delivery and VAT.
Composts are biologically active and contain a complex mix of microorganisms which have been shown to suppress a range of plant pathogen species including Pythium, Phytophthora, and Rhizoctonia, which cause a variety of symptoms including wilting, root rots and tissue necrosis. Using compost as a soil amendment may suppress these diseases and reduce plant losses.
If you need topsoil you can buy it online from our website of visit our specialist topsoil website here. If you need topsoil you can buy it online from our website of visit our specialist topsoil website here.
Composts are biologically active and contain a complex mix of microorganisms which have been shown to suppress a range of plant pathogen species including Pythium, Phytophthora, and Rhizoctonia, which cause a variety of symptoms including wilting, root rots and tissue necrosis. Using compost as a soil amendment may suppress these diseases and reduce plant losses.
If you need topsoil you can buy it online from our website of visit our specialist topsoil website here. If you need topsoil you can buy it online from our website of visit our specialist topsoil website here.
Top Dressing Your Lawn
Three Steps to a Better Lawn
If your lawn is looking a little tired after a poor summer or a wet winter, give it a health kick with an application of top dressing. Our lawns have a hard time over the summer months, with heavy traffic, dry spells, wet spells and lots of cutting. All this activity takes nutrients out of our soils so at the end of the summer it is time to put a little back so that your lawn is alive and kicking next spring.
Step One: Scarifying
Mow your lawn quite short before scarifying, this will allow the scarifier to remove the moss and thatch more effectively. We suggest you use a scarifier with solid steel cutting blades rather than one with wire tines.
You can hire good quality scarifiers from most reputable hire shops, or borrow a friends!
After scarifying, mow your lawn again to remove any up rooted stems and roots. You can compost all the up lifted moss and thatch with your garden prunings in a compost bin or bay.
Step Two: Applying Top Dressing
Apply a generous layer of organic top dressing over the lawn at a depth of about 1cm, you can use a rake or brush to help work it into the cuts made by the scarifier.
If you have hollows and dips in your lawn, now is a good time to level them out by simply applying further layers of topdressing to the hollows over a period of time allowing the grass time grow through after each application.
Organic compost makes a fantastic top dressing as it will hold moisture around the roots of the grass, it releases its vital plant nutrients slowly and it will help to break up heavy clay soils, there is no need to add grit or sand to organic compost when using it as a top dressing!
You can buy quality organic lawn top dressing here at the compost shop in quantities from 25 ltrs to 1 cubic metre!
Step 3 : Over Sowing
Many lawns will benefit from a scattering of grass seed after top dressing, this will thicken the grass for next year creating a dense healthy green lawn that all your neighbours will envy!