Did I do the right thing with this home made compost?

fimonkey

I was gardening over the weekend (weren't we all lol) and I dug over my cold compost heap which for the past two years has had garden and uncooked kitchen waste thrown onto it (including weeds dug up from the garden and citrus fruits that haven't been eaten) . It gets dug over about twice a year but I usually just pile it all up again.

This time I needed to re-pot a small tree (I've forgotten its name, pink flowers about august, can be grown in pots).

Anyway the tub I had for it is huge, so I sifted through the compost and took out the big twigs, but used the rest of it to fill this tub before adding the tree.

Now I'm worried it as all too simple. .. The compost didn't particularly smell other than a weak smell of orange here and there. It was black and crumbly and there were heaps of insects in it and a few tiny black flies.

Will the citrus fruit have made the compost too acidic?
Will the flies and insects (millipedes, woodlice) eat through the roots of the tree now I've put it in a pot where they can't move on?
Should I have mixed homemade compost with garden centre stuff and how I do know there weren't heaps of vine weavel or other eggs in the compost just waiting to hatch and eat the roots of my tree?

Am I worrying too much?

Thanks in advance

Sally_A

Probably worrying a bit too much - hope it all works out well.

Any compost that is not completely perfectly broken down, ie the edge bits of a bin, is fantastic for bean trenches.

PS. I tend to let the council have citrus fruit skins as they take much longer to break down.

Kay_Peel

That's all there is to making compost! It sounds like you've made a nice batch of it and put it to good use.

Well done! :beer:

peter_the_piper

Personally I would only use home made compost as a mulch as you can control the nutrients with a multipurpose compost, just a personal preference. I hope you have the best flowering plant ever and you can then say Ya Boo to me.:-)

Mids_Costcutter

Black and crumbly sounds like a good consistency: I'm sure it will be fine. I've never had any problems with citrus fruit waste decomposing on a 0.9m3 heap.

They (the experts) do say though it's best to avoid pernicious weeds such as couch grass on a compost heap. However even for those there are techniques to compost over a longer period, see:

http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/todo_now/weed_watch.php