I see this kind of material being used on commercial farm fields fairly frequently. I believe the big advantage is that it can be laid down over large areas in a fairly short period of time using newspaper, or smaller pieces of material would massively increase the labor involved. The labor may not be significant for a home gardener, but it could kill the commercial farmer's profits. I must say that fields covered with this kind of material really do have the weeds under control. Over acres of field, you will see practically no weeds. Since I see the same farmers use the material over the years, I assume they feel the costs are worth it. I have also noticed that it is quite easily plowed into the field at the end of the season. Renais

From my search it seems to have everything that other comfrey has. Read for your self. Here is a link that might be useful: all comfrey

I live in a condo with a balcony so NatureMill was the only option I was willing to consider. At first I kept it indoors. It is odourless when the lid is closed, but there is a strong organic mushroom/sourdour odour when you open the lid to add more stuff in. It's not overly unpleasant but I'm very sensitive to smells so I moved the NatureMill to the balcony (thankfully, I have a power outlet outside). Yes, the machine can be finicky but if you FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS, it works fine. I'll admit that I burned through my first machine by not doing so - NatureMill sent me a replacement. My new moto: Nothing stringy, only 1 inch pieces of stuff (my scissors are now very active! much better than using a knife to chop things up), don't overload. If it's too wet or smells sour, I add more pet pine litter or cross-shredded newspapers and baking soda. Above all else - being patient helps. There were times when I was tinkering the inside of the mixing chamber with a screw driver and a knife trying to free up a jam, instead of waiting forty-eight hours like the instructions advised - that wasn't a good idea and contributed to my first machine's demise. If you stick to the motto, you shouldn't be getting jams. I love it when the organic waste gets cooking and really steams up! I've been using the NatureMill Pro for a few months now. We do a lot of cooking using fresh veg and eat lots of fruits so we generate a large amount of organic waste. Add to that coffee grinds and egg shells. In fact, for just two people, I find that my NatureMill is not fast enough to process the organic non-meat waste we generate. The waste from eating just one watermelon or a couple of cantalopes will keep the machine busy for at least a week. In the meantime, I generate several small bags of organic waste waiting to be processed! So I get backlogged regularly. In two months I have generated 3 trays of compost and will have a fourth in a couple of days. It's rich, black and looks like a nice soil. There is one full tray in the machine being heat-cured, and I have the contents from two trays sitting in planters on the balcony being air-cured. I intend to air-cure the compost for at least two weeks before I put it on top of my growing suger snaps and tomato plants. I can comfortable say that I've reduced my landfill waste by around 70% since I bought the NatureMill. As for the future, I'm going to add small chopped up pieces of corn cob and used kleenex tissues next.

I personally don't use compost as a mulch. Normally I use another layer of 'mulch material' over that. I wouldn't leave it uncovered, mostly because I would think you would get a lot of weeds sprouting in it. Even if it's just what blows in and lands on it. But since I've never done that, that's just a guess. I wouldn't use municipal compost. I garden organically, so I'm used to avoiding a lot of things that other gardeners might use. I have neighbors who put all kinds of things on their lawns and put their grass clippings out for the city pick up every week and considering how few people garden organically, I think the majority of people are really uninformed and unconcerned about what they are using on their grass. If it were just leaves that were composted with tree branches, I'd use it in a heartbeat. I sympathize with you, because I'm not a fan of that red mulch either. If I had that situation, I would probably be patient and when I could afford to buy more mulch, I would add just a very thin layer of shredded bark mulch or pine bark fines over the red mulch just to make it look better cosmetically. Maybe just do the front foundation beds and as you have finances to buy more, do the rest and that should require a lot less mulch to do that. edit: I like buying mulch in bags and as I use them I get a few more to keep on hand. I have a local nursery who I've bought mulch in bulk from that I was very happy with, after a few deliveries that I wasn't so happy with from other companies. I didn't want to get another large delivery this year, because I needed less and I asked and they actually bag up their own mulch and sell it that way. And they were willing to sell it to me for the bulk price which was a little cheaper. It's very fresh and just the right color and consistency and lasted a long time the last time I got it. Hopefully you can find somewhere like that. This post was edited by prairiemoon2 on Mon, Jun 30, 14 at 13:25