How do you know when your compost is ready?

[jillan]

I haven't added anything to it for 2 months; and I put it into a
Tumbleweed compost bin, which gets turned weekly.

I'm a newbie at this.

Thanks in advance.

[NMDemDist2]

1. does it look all dark and dirtlike?

then it's done

:shrug:

[jillan]

2. That's it?

There are still some chunks in there - mostly eggshells and sticks.

I thought it had to get to a certain temp or something.

It's scary when you are a compost newbie getting ready to plant vegies for the first time.:scared:

[NMDemDist2]

3. hell I'm a newbie too but if it looks like dirt, it's dirt

I figure this season is a learning curve, if I actually get food out of it, I'm ahead of the game

tomatoes are pretty forgiving from every thing I hear and squash is too

I'm gonna throw some seed in the ground, put some toilet paper rolls around them and see what happens (cuz I see some caterpillars around here and it will hopefully protect them long enough to get growing.....

[jillan]

4. Toilet paper rolls ???

Thanks for the tip. :)

We will have to keep posting our trials and tribulations.

[NMDemDist2]

5. cut em in half first

you want 1 inch below ground and 2 inches above

[jillan]

6. okay - I'll try it :)

[plantwomyn]

7. Check the smell too.

Smells like dirt, looks like dirt, must be dirt.
Ps. you could run it through hardware cloth to "weed" out larger pieces. Use the big stuff to start your new batch.

[bklyncowgirl]

8. If you can tell what it used to be it's not compost.

I use a three bin method. Anything that's not finished just gets tossed back in bin number 1. This helps get the other stuff rotting.