Find the Best Compost: What To Look For?

Grow the most from your compost by following these tips on what makes a quality batch. Make sure the next time you buy compost for your garden, its the good stuff.

Many people claim to have the "best compost", and that might be true, but how do we tell? If you're going to start composting, let's make sure your garden is being fed by high-quality compost. We are here to help you discern good compost from bad. While this may seem daunting the good news is that it usually only requires a few, quick observations.

The Best Compost: What To Look For?

Let's start by analyzing what a good compost should be like from a sensory standpoint. These are the main criteria we will be using to evaluate compost quality in this article.

Smell

Ideally, quality compost should have a soft, earthy aroma. This means it came from a healthy compost pile with a proper ratio of organic matter. This ratio will lend itself as a great fertilizer for vegetables and flowers in a garden. Plants need a certain balance of nutrients from the soil, and this can be influenced by what we put into the compost. If there is too much wet or dry matter, we can have issues breaking down the compounds and there may be issues. Therefore it is important to manage your compost bins well and have a basic understanding of these principles. While organic matter smells filthy as it decomposes, when added in correct proportions to compost, it should not be unpleasant. If you detect this smell, you may need to add something of give it more time before use.

On the flip side, if the compost has a noticeably foul odor, there could be a few problems you need to be aware of. Firstly, an abundance of nitrogen-rich green material- think spinach and other greens, along with stem and leaf waste- could have been used. So how does this translate and why should you care? The problem with this imbalance as this compost could kill small roots and weaken a plants' stem when added to a garden. It could also be a sign that the compost has not finished decomposition and is still bio-actively breaking down scraps.

To recap, good compost should smell good, and bad compost should smell bad. This is mostly due to imbalances in it's composition and should be corrected.

Feel

Good quality compost should be soft and crumbly to the touch. it should carry a little bit of moisture, but it should definitely not be wet or soggy in any way. If the compost is "fluffy" or a fine powder, it has had a long time to properly break down and draw out the nutrients from the original organic matter. Keep in mind that if you keep the compost outside and the bin is not entirely airtight, it may also be wet because it has rained recently. If you know this is the case, focus on the other criteria for determining the quality or wait a couple days for it to dry out.

Soggy compost is considered unideal as it may not spread easily when added to the garden. However, it shouldn't be too dry either. If you find this is the case, the compost may be an older batch. This can sometimes mean that the old nutrients have decomposed too far and much of the nutrient potential has been lost. Another problem you may face is if you find the compost is coarse and full of large pieces of individual matter. If this happens, allow it to break down a bit more before use or you will be losing out on some of the nutrients that should have been available for the volume purchased.

Color

The color of good quality compost should be uniform. A dark brown with no signs of undecomposed material is a green flag for high-quality compost. Often, if we see different colors or pieces of matter we can recognize as something else, either the object is not supposed to be included in the compost, or it has not fully had time to decompose. Anything inconsistent is a bad sign.  This points to material that has not been fully broken down or something worse: inorganic material that was mixed in with the rest of the compost. Inorganic material is a sign of improper sifting and could signal that the compost may be polluted with other toxic metals or compounds.

Make sure you review what items can and should not be included in composting and comply with these suggestions. Otherwise, it likely needs more time or- if it's a singular object- got added in by accident after the fact.

Conclusion

Remember, the difference between good and poor quality compost is important for raising a healthy garden and getting the most from your harvest. Quality compost can be a miracle ingredient for plants, while bad compost may do more harm than good.

Very poor quality compost should be easily identifiable, but it is important to keep an eye out for subtler things that could tip off a poor batch. Adding compost with an improper balance of nutrients could hurt the development of your plants, and even change the quality of products grown.

If you are ordering online, check the reviews for the brand that you are buying from to ensure that it is a reputable source. If you are getting compost from a local source, ask for a picture of the final product.

In our gardens, we want only the highest quality compost as a fertilizer for our plant babies. Unfortunately, sometimes it can be difficult to tell. If you want to make sure your compost is done correctly from scratch, check out our Beginner's Guide to Composting here. However, if you are simply looking to check the quality of a compost, we hope this article has helped you gain a better understanding of compost. As always, leave a comment if you have any helpful information to share! Hopefully we can grow a greener, less wasteful world together.

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