Hi Mikey!
As I recall your website left me with the impression that you have space constraints that would limit the size of your utility area for the purpose of making compost. If you get yours bagged or bailed, odds are that it will be unfinished more often than not, or at least that’s the secondary reason I stopped getting packaged compost, the primary reason was cost. I found that even if I finished the packaged stuff myself, I couldn’t afford the cost of what it takes to conquer the soil problems you speak of. So the first order of business for me was to find wholesale amounts as cheaply as possible, if not free. Stable rentals and livestock shows were my first sources. I like dry animal manures rather than wet manures. Horse, sheep, rabbit and the like. Feed lot manures have too much salt in them, the cows and such are on a movie theater diet, salt in the food to make you thirsty to get more last minute weight on the hoof, not to mention the salt blocks layin’ around to add to it. But as the years went buy the straw that breaks down easily gave way to sawdust and wood chips for stable bedding. Too high a carbon content for decomposition to suit my needs. I need a product that has a high enough natural nitrogen content that all I have to do is pile it up, add water and stir. Then keep stirring or turning often for rapid decomposition. When a pile is finished, I’d rather use it all in a small space and get dynamic results from a few plants than to take a chance of spreading too thin and have marginal if not negligible results. In your case it takes a lot to hold surface moisture but it does work. I use composted cottonseed hulls as soil amendment or even soil replacement (great for heavy feeding exotics) and then I blanket the beds with a two to four inch layer of raw cottonseed hulls to insure a capillary action just underneath the layer is insured. If you not familiar with the effect, lay a large sheet of plastic on the ground and see how quickly sub soil moisture forms under the plastic and you’ll see what I mean. Be sure the soil is tilled before applying the mulch layer, that way the soil will say loose underneath the mulch all season long no matter how much you water or how much it rains. I apply a few of the most active earthworms I can locate and in no time I have them in abundance. Where you are located (Z 10) 1000 breeders will produce at least a million in a season. Before ya know it ya got worm boroughs all through the root zones of your plants laden with urea nitrogen and castings. With about 252 kidneys per worm to lubricate their movement, you can expect a lot of urine. I wish it were easy to collect, I’d use it as a foliar feed. Oh well I digress. In regard to your seeds Mikey I’m not familiar with mushroom compost, so I have no idea how course or fine it is, nor any idea how well composted it is, but maybe you can glean something from this. I will compost prairie hay, in abundance around here, instead of using it as a mulch. It has so many seeds in it that you get a weed patch if used as a mulch. If thoroughly composted the seeds have rotted and will offer no problems, but in your case, though I’m not sure, that could be a problem. Well there I go again, my kids tell their friends “don’t ask my dad any questions unless your prepared to listen a few hours to get the answer, if your lucky”. Holler if ya think I can help. But I don’t promise any short answers unless it happens to be “ I just don’t know”.
Paul
