The chunk comes from it being sitting around on the outside. If I managed to acquire it when they first deliver it, there are few chunks and definitely weight a lot less than soil. However, the stuff get rained on and becomes chunky. However, even at its best, it isn't as good as the bag of mushroom compost I got, that was fine grain. However, I suspect it had more soluble salt than I would have like. I guess with bag stuff, I wonder if they add fillers. I recall that someone tested a bagged compost once and discovered that it contain less organic material than his soil. I wish consumer reports or some gardening magazine would do an analysis of the bagged stuff so I know what to buy. I think I know to avoid certain products. There was another brand of mushroom compost that smell strongly of ammonia, that was probably unfinished... Paul

To do this right, imo anyway, you really need a three-step system. One is for the current stuff being added daily. One is for the stuff still cooking beyond the day-to-day additions. One for finished compost waiting for the next 'gardening moment'. Here's what I have settled into after about 3 years of composting. I found a barrel composter at a yard sale for $75, this is my day-to-day barrel. When it gets full and difficult to 'flip', I empty it out onto the ground and turn it into a couple of plastic garbage cans that we cut the bottom out of and drilled LOTS of holes in. Periodically, (once a month would be good but I don't get to it that often and frankly weekly would be better), I dump out the contents of the garbage can and reposition the now empty can as close to where it was before but all the debris is now piled up there. Now start shoveling it all back in, watering as you go. In a perfect world I would have first stopped at one or more Starbucks and picked up a bunch of coffee grounds so I could add a layer of grounds and some dry leaves that I always have around as I go. When you can no longer identify anything in the pile, and it's nice and black and smells earthy, it's ready for the garden. Otherwise, it's still cooking. Some of the cities around the Valley sell, for $5, recycle bins that they have cut the wheels and bottom section from and drilled a few holes in. I have one of these but never use it. I'm in NW Phx at 43rd Ave and Peoria and you can have this one if interested. HTH. I think the stacking ones work great but are too pricey for my meager budget.

I cook a pound of dried chickpeas for hummus, divide the cooked peas three ways, make hummus with one portion and freeze the other two for later batches. The frozen peas are indistinguishable from freshly cooked when made into hummus. I have a really ancient (stainless steel four-sided container w/ a spigot) VitaMix that I found at an estate sale. (I got a plug from VM for the spigot hole because food got into the spigot, was wasted and the spigot was a pain to clean out.) Has reverse which I use when grinding eggshells--Need to do this outdoors. I have used the VM to make cornmeal out of popcorn when I had run out of cornmeal. It did an OK job. Used it to make lo-carb ice cream--cream, sweetener, ice cubes, vanilla--did a good job with that. Used it a couple of times to puree soup. Abandoned that because it's messy and I don't like dirtying up extra containers & transferring hot soup. The stick blender works just fine for that task. I tried smoothies but my stomach does not like all the air that gets incorporated into them. Gives me terrible pains. And I like my margaritas on the rocks. Actually, we like the already mixed Chi-chi's margaritas, diluted with a little water because they're too strong/ too sweet w/o dilution & served on the rocks. Chi-chi's might be just about right undiluted if you're blending w/ ice for a frozen drink. Bottom line is that I could easily live without the very loud beast. I'm just glad that I paid only $20 for the it. Satisfied my curiosity about them. IMO, VM, Blendtech, etc. are over-hyped & overly expensive. To be fair, I very seldom used my old Oster blender before I got the VM so didn't really have much use for a super-duper blender in the first place.

It's encouraging, boncrow, to know the kitchen scraps smoothie works for your friend. We eat a lot of salads with every kind of veggie you can think of, so my rose smoothies will probably have all kinds of things besides bananas, egg shells and coffee grounds in them. I'm eager to see if it makes a differenced on my roses. Lilyfinch, we eat a lot of bananas, too, and I have always just laid the peels at the base of the roses. I save egg shells and crush them to go in my planting mix, but I have to get my coffee grounds from Starbucks - we're tea drinkers. There are always a few bags at the end of the counter. I admit I thought the banana thing was an old wives tale until I absentmindedly laid a banana peel on an old nursery pot of shasta daisies. The pot with the banana peel produced new green growth and started blooming while the other identical pot turned brown. Ended up planting the green one and tossing the other one. Not very scientific, but it convinced me banana peels are not just old wives tales.