Define compost?

[peter]

To me there are two separate gardening definitions.


1 The word on its own, "compost" means the output of the compost heap, composted, i.e. rotted organic material.

2 The word with a suffix, "Seed compost", "Potting compost", i.e. a mixture of materials suitable for the purpose denoted by the suffix.

I have noticed a trend in recent years where the two seem to have become confused by various people, to the extent of some people merely sieveing the output of their heap, placing it in trays to germinate seeds in, or, in pots to grow plants in.

Is this just assumptive ignorance, or am I missing something and if so what?

No silly replies, I'm asking a serious question.

[Clive.]

Hello Peter,
Just to confuse further ...at home here we genuinely do riddle from the compost heap for use as a potting compost for some specific jobs such is the quality of the material produced by our 2 heap system. One particular use is for the early Potatoes in pots for which the riddled material is used with a little growmore. Also used as a half and half addition with bought potting compost for some greenhouse plants.

I have though come across the muddled notion that you mention...the confusing English language again.!!.

...or...it's all my fault.

I have also come across similar when asking a young colleague to go and fetch a barrow of Muck (Manure)....along came a barrow of soil...

Clive.

[richard p]

if hed done work experience on a building site you could have got a barrow load of mortar

[oldherbaceous]

That's exactly what i thought too, Richard.

[Monika]

To differentiate, perhaps the bagged, bought stuff should be called "growing medium" rather than compost.

[Primrose]

Am I also correct in assuming that "commercially bagged compost" has also undergone some kind of heat/sterilising process to ensure the killing of all weed seeds, whereas compost produced on a home compost heap does not. (Anybody who has ever thrown a tomato onto a compost heap will testify to its ability to survive almost any compost heap natural heating process and reproduce itself into hundreds of seedlings, almost at will).

[Shallot Man]

Primrose. Many moons ago when the local sewage works delivered a trailer load of treated sewage for a fiver, tomato was one of the free crops one grew the following season.

[Primrose]

shallot man - One of the best tomato plants I ever grew sprouted this way on my compost heap. I just left it to do its own thing and reaped a nice unexpected crop at the end of the season. Whether it will have depleted the nourishment my compost was able to provide when spread on the vegetable patch afterwards is something I obviously don't know.

[Johnboy]

Shallot Man,
During WW2 when I was a nipper I used to take the tomato seedlings from the local sewage works pot them on in newspaper pots and sell them for 3d each. A lot of money for those days. That is how I financed my very first allotment in my Grandfathers orchard. I bought plants in but never paid more than 2d for them. Once a trader always a trader!
Seeds were hard to get at times and everybody saved their own.
I used to allow only one Brassica a year to go to seed on the plot and this way no unwanted hybrids. (on advice from my Grandfather)
Brassica seeds if properly stored will germinate and grow on well after six years storage.
JB.

[Primrose]

Shallot Man,
During WW2 when I was a nipper I used to take the tomato seedlings from the local sewage works pot them on in newspaper pots and sell them for 3d each. A lot of money for those days. That is how I financed my very first allotment in my Grandfathers orchard. I bought plants in but never paid more than 2d for them. Once a trader always a trader!

JB.

What a lovely reminisance JB. How many kids these days would be so resourceful? Still, I suppose with unlimited supplies of everything heaped upon them, they've never had to learn the hard way.

I remember that as a six year old, I once pinched clothes from the bottom of my mother's wardobe to trade in for 3 little chicks from a Rag & Bone man outside our school. My mother was furious when she discovered what I'd done. Of course I had no idea that clothes were on coupon at the time and couldn't be replaced. By the time she had dragged me and the chicks back round to the school, the Rag & Bone man had of course disappeared. Two of the chicks died very quickly. The third grew up to be a big black cockerill which roamed free in the garden who attacked my mother every time she went outside to hang out the washing. It was not my finest deed as a child

[Johnboy]

Hi Primrose,
I bet that cockerel tasted wonderful!
JB.

[Primrose]

No, it didn't actually. When it started attacking me as well, my mother said to a lad who lived across the road "If you can catch it, tell your Mum she can have it for the pot." He duly came over and caught it after a helluva chase and a few days later he knocked on the door and said "My mum said to tell you that the bird was very tough!"
I think I was so relieved to be able to go out in the garden again without fear of attack that I didn't give much thought to its fate.

(Can't you sleep Johnboy? What are you doing posting on here at 2,42 a.m.? Have you taken up an extra curricular activity as the local poacher ? )

[Johnboy]

Because I have had some difficulties of late I have been dozing during the day and not managing to sleep at nights. Daft I know but very soon I will be able to get about the plot doing what I can and not playing the old man with my afternoon naps!
JB.

[alan refail]

To me there are two separate gardening definitions.


1 The word on its own, "compost" means the output of the compost heap, composted, i.e. rotted organic material.

2 The word with a suffix, "Seed compost", "Potting compost", i.e. a mixture of materials suitable for the purpose denoted by the suffix.

I have noticed a trend in recent years where the two seem to have become confused by various people, to the extent of some people merely sieveing the output of their heap, placing it in trays to germinate seeds in, or, in pots to grow plants in.

Is this just assumptive ignorance, or am I missing something and if so what?

No silly replies, I'm asking a serious question.

The confusion you mention crops up in this recent post -

viewtopic.php?p=88667#p88667

[peter]

I saw, my point exactly.