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Tue, May 10, 11 at 14:49
| My municipality offers compost, free for the taking, made primarily from leaves. I went and looked at it, and the only issue seems to be that there is some gravel mixed in with it. They said it is because these large piles are on a gravel parking lot surface and when they turn them with their equipment, some gravel (and sand) gets mixed in. Do you think it would be unwise to take some of this compost for garden use, or would it be necessary to screen the rocks out, or do you find it no big deal to have occasional small gravel-sized rocks mixed in with your soil? Thanks for the advice. |
Follow-Up Postings:
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| I have had the very same problem. They also said it was from scraping it up...I doubt that part. I suspect that much of it is coming with the leaves...some people just don't care enough. The rocks don;t compost and it magnifies the final result. Anyway, if this year's compost is 10% rocks again, I assume it will not get better. I screened most of mine. I decided that one application would not really hurt, but continued applications would be rockier than I want. |
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| I often get rootballs of potted plants sent out with the yard trimmings and there is very often gravel stuck to the bottom or mixed in. Sometimes it comes from the boulevard rakings in the spring. Small stuff (<1/2 inch) is difficult and time consuming to screen out. I'm not a gardener but I picked many a stone out of gardens, I wouldn't sweat the small stuff myself. Lloyd |
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| Which are we talking about -- gravel or rocks? If gravel, it's relatively small size -- what size is yours? -- and won't bother a thing. If it's rocks -- what size are yours? -- can be a total pain or not, depending upon the size. If large, I'd remove them when I came to them. |
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| I wouldn't be surprised either if some came in with the leaves. I guess its just a matter of if I want to go through the trouble of building a screener (and using it) to get them out or not. I measured and it looks like most are in the 1/2" to 1" long/wide range. Basically standard gravel size for driveways around here. |
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| Pretty much the same here...mostly 1/2 to 5/8 size. It's the quantity that hurts...BB size is ok and goes through screening. A few rocks in a bag may not look so bad, but when the leaves compost down to maybe 5% and the rocks remain full size...it is not good. |
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