I'm a doofus. I missed the fact that the analysis was conducted on your 2/3 soil to 1/3 mushroom compost blend. Anyway, my comment about 0.0 ppm available nitrogen stands. I think it's a lab error. My comments about salinity also stand because we don't know the starting salinity of the compost or the soil. That being said, the final blend is 23% O.M. by dry weight, which is super high. If the mushroom compost was 1/3 of the final blend by volume, that would put you in the 7 to 8% organic range by dry weight if mixed with a mineral soil. And that's if the compost itself were high in organic material. (The analyses I looked at for the compost ranged from about 30 to 60% O.M. by dry weight). So, it would be a safe bet that your 4-way soil is probably around 15% O.M. by dry weight or a little higher. That means that it was probably about 50% to 60% organic material by volume and who the heck knows what that O.M. was. If it was raw wood chips, you would still have some available nitrogen in the analysis, but potentially not enough to balance carbon and it's feasible that you do indeed have a nitrogen draw issue. Or, if it has a heavy manure component, that could contribute to salts. (even a high quality greenwaste compost will often have a salinity level of 5 to 7 dS/m). Also consider that such a high amount of organic matter has the potential to hold too much water, especially if drainage isn't all that great at the bottom of the planters.

dalton thanks for the pics. I have been talking to my husband about making a bin. When I saw your pallets I knew that was the bin for me. Maybe because I can get the pallets free and it does not look hard to do. Swanz that is a very nice bin my hats off to you. I tried to do that once and my daughter just laughed at the finished product and my family threw it out. Oh well so much for building things.

Hi Leo, I’m lazy! The way I do it is to throw it on a pile and let it rot! No special mixtures, just whatever I have to throw on the pile goes on the pile. In the last few years I have started to turn and/or mix and fluff it up at least once a year to get air in it to get it cooking! Otherwise the only thing I do is to wet it down well every now and then in summer (and occasionally in winter) when we haven’t had any precip for a while. What David 52 isn’t telling you (now, David!) is that he has a couple acres of grass! At least! So when he lets it grow “for a few weeks” and then mows—he has a MOUNTAIN of clippings! Most urban folks aren’t that lucky! Like David 52 I use my grass clippings to mulch my veggie garden, but I don’t have that many and last year I started putting a thick layer of half-decomposed leaves that have been laying out there in the bags (the bags that get holes and get water in them) all winter around all the tomatoes/eggplants. That’s working really well—it’s almost like a wet sponge on top of the soil! If you’re planning to have a “bottom” in your bins, DON’T! If you leave them open to the soil the worms will migrate up into the compost and help the decomposition—and they’ll multiply like crazy and give you lots of worms to “transplant” all over your yard! A buncha years ago I started a compost thread—with possibly the longest post I’ve ever done! The only thing I do differently from what I said in that thread is that I don’t do any screening at all anymore! And I also do NOT let the compost decompose ALL the way anymore! I generally use it when it’s about 50-60% finished. That puts organic matter that attracts worms into the soil where I’m planting whatever I’m planting—and I also intentionally transplant worms with the compost I’m using. When I’m mixing it in to plant something and I find “pieces” that are too big to easily mix in, they just get thrown back on the pile. The one (minor, in my opinion) problem is that as the unfinished compost finishes, the area “sinks down” a little bit and needs a little bit of filling in at some point. http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/2127510/reflections-on-compost With your “bags of leaves!” It’s WONDERFUL to have bagged leaves over winter! I discovered this accidentally, but I get all the (50-60) bags of leaves from one neighbor and, needing someplace to put them, I started stacking them on top of the soil where my tomatoes are planted. The first year, when I was moving one of them I discovered that the worms had been “procreating” out there all winter! When I pick up a bag there’s a MASS of worms under it—most of them disappear pretty quickly, but I can never believe how many there are! So since that first year, I now cover every square inch of my veggie garden with leaf bags and leave them there all winter! They keep the soil underneath moist, and they insulate the soil enough that the worms stay active ALL winter. I highly recommend you try it! In spring I mix leaves right out of the bags (both wet and dry ones) into my (clay) soil where I plant the veggies, and they decompose in the soil over summer. The bags that get holes in them will get water in them, and they’ll start to decompose in the bags over winter—and it’s not unusual for worms to find their way into the wet bags and happily live in there! Whatever bags I have left in spring that I can’t use somewhere I put on the compost pile and just keep adding more as it goes down. (I do add bags of leaves sometimes over winter too!) People will dispute this, but I don’t put eggshells on the pile anymore! The first year I did, but I tend to dig around in the pile with my bare hands, and eggshells are SHARP! I also discovered that they never decompose! The few I put in that first year stayed just like they were when they were put there—except for the fact that they got dirty!!! (Also, pumpkin seeds NEVER decompose! I haven’t put any on my pile for 8 or 9 years, but when I’m planting in the yard I STILL get into them—intact—in places where they got buried those first couple years. I’ve even tried “tearing them in half” when I find them and reburying them, but then I just wind up finding the “torn in half” ones a couple years later!) I don’t know if this is explained in the compost thread! What you see in the pics is pieces of galvanized sheet metal attached to the fence to keep from rotting it out! That’s the “entire” construction of my compost pile! I put up the metal and started throwing stuff on the ground! I think you might be surprised by how many veggie scraps you come up with, and all “discards” from perennials and annuals can go on the pile too. I don’t ever put weeds that even just MIGHT have seeds on the pile. Not worth taking a chance! As usual, this got way longer than I planned! Gotta go! Happy composting, Skybird

Those bugs and bacteria that live in the soil need a food source, the organic matter, to exist and function. Cardboard, or newspaper, laid on the surface of soil will deny any plants growing there access to the light they need to continue growing, and most will die as a result adding organic material to the soil. Covering the cardboard, or newspaper with lawn clippings and leaves will hide them and help hold them in place and provide the Soil Food Web (the bugs and bacteria) with a food source and they will work on moving that material into the soil and converting it into nutrients plants can use. There is little you can do to prevent wind blown or animal/bird dropped "weed" seeds from sprouting on mulch or compost, although stirring the material periodically can help keep them under control. kimmq is kimmsr