The quality of your compost will ultimately dictate the health of your garden.
It is critical to assess your compost quality before adding it to your garden to ensure your garden is receiving only the proper amount of nutrients from compost.
To test compost quality you can examine its color, smell, texture, and temperature, use a wood breaking test, or purchase a kit to test it. Each of these six analysis methodology is easy to analyze reliably the quality of your compost.
If you want to learn about testing the quality of your compost using the six methods mentioned above continue reading.
What Is Quality Compost?
Approximately 35% to 65% of quality compost is organic material when weighed dry.
When compost contains this percentage of organic matter, it can help your garden and its plants thrive.
If compost is too dry, it will most likely already have lost many of its nutrients, which means it will not be able to contribute to your garden’s health in the way you desire. On the other hand, compost that is not matured yet is more likely to burn or harm your sensitive plants.
Now you know: Be sure to only use quality compost for your garden! Only then will the compost be able to nourish your garden and its plants as you want it.
6 Easy Ways to Test Compost Quality
It’s extremely easy to test your compost pile for quality.
Using common sense of sight or smell, you can eyeball this stage of compost maturation.
But if you want a more definitive answer, you can either look at its temperature or do an easy wood break test.
If you are using this compost for commercial purposes, you will want to buy a professional kit.
While the professional kit will cost money, it will provide the only definitive answer about the quality of the compost.
Personal compost should not need a professional kit.
1. Color
When you start a compost pile, it will be a collection of many colors and chunks of materials.
If after while you can see a lot of different colors especially big pieces of colors, then your compost is not ready.
The color should start to homogenize as the decomposition process begins.
By this, I mean the compost should turn into an even dark or rich brown, or it might be so dark it just looks black.
When the compost is completely decomposed and dark you can see gray bits in the pile which usually means the compost has dried out too much.
So, aim for something in between dark brown and black.
What to expect: You can see little specks of different colors, but from a distance, the compost should look like one color.
2. Odor
Almost everyone is familiar with the stinky smell of a compost pile.
After it has aged a bit, the smell of your compost pile should start to indicate to your nose it’s okay to get closer. If your compost pile continues to smell awful, it is likely not ready to use yet.
Young compost piles produce a lot of ammonia. The ammonia is what gives off the awful smell. Once the compost has aged a little the offensive odor should diminish.
Eventually, the smell should be almost imperceptible. This is why aged or mature compost smells like plain old soil.
If your compost pile just smells like dirt, it is probably aged or mature and ready to go in your garden.
3. Structure
You can further evaluate the maturity of your compost by examining its overall structure.
The ideal compost has no identifiable materials, except small pieces of wood, much like mulch.
Additionally, it has a crumbly texture and has some fibrous materials. However, it shouldn’t have too much fibrous material visible. Too much fibrous material means the compost is not mature.
This fibrous material often builds up due to too much wetness.
In general, look for a crumbly-like texture in your compost. Many people compare mature compost structures to coarse sand.
4. Temperature
As you may know, microorganisms decompose compost within the pile.
As it decomposes, various things decompose and generate heat. When compost decomposes, it is much hotter than when it is mature.
However, a pile should never be too cold, or too hot. Healthy compost piles will usually be anywhere from 90 degrees Fahrenheit to 140 degrees Fahrenheit.
You can only expect the pile to eventually reach these temperatures if you start with a pile that is at least 3 by 3 by 3 ft.
Keep in mind that different parts of the pile will have different temperatures, due to the temperature changing from the center outwards.
5. Wood Break Test
Everything mentioned above are methods which may tell you quickly whether or not your compost pile is ripe or not but does not have an iron clad indicates that it is ripe.
You can repeatedly take more reliable way to assess quality of compost is the Wood Break Test.
This test involves sticking a piece of wood into the pile and observing its decay:
- In young compost, there will be little sign of degradation.
- As the compost begins to mature, the wood will become slightly mushy, dark, and oily, but will not be fully assented,
You know that the compost is matured when the wood is mushy and the exterior of the wood and pile are dark and black.
You will at that point also be able to easily squeeze out water from the wood.
Once you start to see this happening to the wood, you know that the compost is high quality.
6. Professional Kit
The ultimate method of determining if your compost is mature is to have it tested by a professional.
You may be able to buy a kit locally at a farm or garden, but you can also contact a professional biochemical company to do the test.
During the testing, the compost will be tested for its biochemical minerals. In particular, the organic material will be tested and the ratio of the micronutrients will be documented.
This will break down exactly what in the compost and what it is ready to be used. Some tests will also test to check if there is pollution potential.
While this is the best way of knowing if your compost is mature, it is also the most inconvenient and likely most expensive way.
Good To Have: If you simply want to use compost in a home garden, the above wood breaking test should be sufficient, but if you are using compost for longevity and commercially with your business, you should consider buying an official kit.
Final Thoughts
Before applying any compost to your garden, it is important to determine its quality and state of maturation.
If you add compost to your garden too early, it could likely harm and kill all of the plants.
If you wait too long, it will not help much.
The easiest way to evaluate compost quality is to recognize the color, odor, and texture. Once you have confirmed with your senses that the compost is mature, you can take its temperature or try the wood breaking test to confirm your hypothesis.
Commercial growers can take it one step further and confirm the quality of their compost by purchasing a professional kit.
We hope this article has helped you understand how to indicate the quality of your compost so that you can build the perfect garden.