Kitchen Garden Forum

I've done it myself with potatoes and know that others use their compost heaps to grow courgettes and squashes. However, all these plants are quite greedy feeders and I'm wondering if the value of the compost nutrition is reduced as a result by the time it's dug out and ready to incorporate in the veggie patch.

Hello Primrose
I've grown courgettes on my compost heap in the past and found that I had to water it fairly often with a soluble fertilizer to get a good growth. Also the plants showed a lack of Mg so I had to add this as well. Once I'd got this nutrition problem sorted out I had a superb crop.
I always try to get the contents of the compost heap onto and into the soil during the winter so I don't usually have anything much to use for growing during the summer.

John

PS If I have any available, I add partly composted stuff to where I grow squash and this works OK.

I grew custard squash on my mothers compost heap this year - but that was heavily laden with cow muck & straw, so although the squash took some of the nutrients, I think there is a fair bit left. due to the amount of moisture retain in the muck / compost, once the plant was established we didn't need to water it much atall. we had an incredible crop. My dad used to have great pumpkins by growing them on the manure heap.
For some reason i tend to imagine that the roots etc help to break down the compost - but I have no evidence!

I also had a potatoe grow in my own compost (with no manure), which did ok, but that was cause I had obviously left a potatoe in there by mistake!