Half Compost, half Pine Products

I'm working on my Mel's Mix and found "Nature's Helper" which claims to be 50% pine products, and 50% compost. Is this okay to use as one of my compost sources, and how does the "pine products" effect the mix?

Thanks

CL

Chopped Liver MM wrote:I'm working on my Mel's Mix and found "Nature's Helper" which claims to be 50% pine products, and 50% compost. Is this okay to use as one of my compost sources, and how does the "pine products" effect the mix?

Thanks

CL

Howdy and glad you asked:

Well composted pine products can be used as one of your compost sources. On page 96 of the "ALL NEW Square Foot Gardening" book you will find a chart at the top of the page that puts pine needles in the Caution - Limited Amounts column. Any item on this list should be limited to no more than 10 per cent of the total of your blended compost mix. In reading other composting books it appears that the problem with using pine as compost comes when the pine is not fully composted. A way to tell if pine or any other product in your compost is not fully composted is to look at the product. If you can identify what the product was it is not fully composted. So if you can tell it was pine needles, pine chips, oak leaves or any other source material the composting process was not complete when the product was bagged.

There is an old saying in the commercial compost business that goes something like this, "When is Compost Ready to be bagged and shipped"? Answer, "When does the customer want it"? In other words sometimes when we get bagged compost it was bagged before it should have been.

Well composted material should have the smell of good quality earth.

God Bless, Ward and Mary.