Compost for Raised Beds: How Much to Use My first raised bed was a disaster. Not because I built it badly — the timber was solid, the drainage was fine, and I had plenty of enthusiasm. The problem was the compost. I had no idea how much to use, so I used too little, topped…

Compost Tea: How to Make Liquid Fertiliser from Compost If you have a compost heap working away at the bottom of your garden, you are already doing something genuinely useful for the environment and your soil. But there is a way to take that hard-won compost and multiply its benefits many times over – by…

Making Potting Mix with Homemade Compost There is something deeply satisfying about scooping a trowel of dark, crumbly compost from your own bin and knowing it started life as last week’s vegetable peelings and a pile of soggy cardboard. But once you have that beautiful finished compost in your hands, what exactly do you do…

Compost as a Lawn Top Dressing: How and When to Apply Why Your Lawn Might Need a Little Help A few years ago, a gardener in rural Shropshire noticed that her lawn — lovingly maintained for over a decade — had begun to look tired. The grass was thin in patches, the soil beneath it…

How to Use Finished Compost in Your Garden After weeks or months of patient waiting, turning, and tending, your compost bin has finally produced something remarkable: dark, crumbly, sweet-smelling finished compost. It looks like rich soil, it smells like an autumn woodland floor, and it is packed with the nutrients and microbial life that your…