How Much Compost Do I Need?
Are you trying to figure out how much compost is needed for your garden or yard? This compost calculator guide can help you figure out how much compost is sufficient and effective for your plants.
Using organic compost is essential for the healthy growth of your plants. However, too much or too little compost may not be the best thing. Thus, it is important to learn how to gauge the right amount for your space. The guide below offers a comprehensive compost calculator guide to walk you through the process.
Why Should I Use Compost for My Lawn or Garden?
Using organic fertilizer especially worm compost goes a long way for the healthy growth of your plants.
Amongst the key advantages of using compost include:
- Improving and accelerating plant growth
- Promoting plant health
- Enhancing food taste
- Improves soil quality in your garden
- Improve the food web living in the soil
- Decreases the need for irrigation
- Improves drainage
- Reduces stormwater wipe off
Why Is It Important To Figure Out “How Much Compost Do I Need”?
As mentioned above, knowing how much compost you need and measuring the right amount ensures that it is effective. If you plan on using commercial compost, knowing the amount needed is also quite important – you don’t want to overspend on the material you really don’t need.
How Much Compost Do I Need for My Lawn or Garden?
Compost, the especially commercial type comes in varying content. You may find pure compost or compost mixtures with some other ingredients. Determining how much compost you need integrates two steps. The first is to mix the compost and soil, whilst the second step is to actually measure how much compost you need.
When you mix your compost and soil, you should go for a 25% to 75% mixture, respectively. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you are digging out the soil instead, mix about 1 to 2 inches of the compost into 6 to 8 inches of the topsoil.
Compost Calculator
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In recent years, compost calculation has been simplified and made extremely convenient. Instead of having to spend countless hours manually doing the numbers, you can now find a wide selection of compost calculators online. To help you do the calculations, simply type “compost calculator” on your search bar.
To calculate how much compost you need, there are several facts you must first have at hand. These include the size of the area (length and width) and the depth of the compost. If you can’t figure out the actual size of the area, you can simply classify the space such as a garden, raised bed, established lawn, or a new lawn. Furthermore, you can determine if you want the compost dose to be light or heavy.
If you want to take the hard route, you can always calculate the measurements manually:
Calculator your garden or lawn space and the value you get should be in square feet. For example, if you have a 50 square feet garden, you will need a have dose to establish the health of the ground. In this case, you will need at least 2 inches of compost.
So, the volume of the compost needed will simply be identified by multiplying the area of the garden and the depth of the compost. In this case, you will multiply 50 square feet by 2 inches to get 8.3 cubic feet.
Area of the space (in square feet) x depth of compost (in inches)
Multiplying these two values gives you the amount of compost needed in cubic feet.
How Much Compost do I Need for My Garden or Lawn From The Store?
As mentioned above, part of the reason why you need to know how much compost you want is to know how much to buy (if you intend on using commercial compost). Generally, commercial compost is available in cubic yard packs (as wholesale packages) and cubic foot bags (if you purchase from local gardens or home improvement stores).
Thus, once you calculate the compost you need, you know how much to buy without ending up with too much wastage. If you don’t want to spend too much money at stores, you can even make your own compost at home. After all, making compost from the comfort of your home is also cost-effective and holds numerous other benefits. These include reducing food waste, decreasing your greenhouse gas emissions, and decreasing reliance on chemical fertilizers.
