Vanessa you will get some nay sayers but look at my journal. I have grown vegies in SFG and the GH in 100% pure homemaid compost.


John

Here is a link that might be useful: Johns Journal

I am pretty lazy about harvesting the compost, seldom do any screening. Generally I will just take the compost and dump it where I want to plant something. For example, I had a washed out area around a rain downspout; I put down paving stones for a channel out to the lawn, and compost on either side of it. No digging in, just a thick layer of compost that I planted with parsley and catnip seedlings, they did great. Also had a raised bed that I would dump a load of compost into each year, then put in vegetable plants, they did great too.

You'll find many discussions here on planting in straight compost or filling raised beds with straight compost and generally it is not recommended as the ideal approach.

This is not to say it can't be done - clearly it can. But it does have some problems that don't exist when compost is instead used as it is supposed to be - as a soil amendment. And the degree of success will depend a great deal on the quality of the compost itself. Not all compost is created equally. ;)

Dave

All of our containers are filled with compost, since I see no reason to spend money on the bags of "potting soil" the stores sell nad those plants grow just fine. Now how well that will work depends on the soil conditions the plant likes and most often herbs will not do well in the very rich compost, most herbs developed growing in sparse soils so you need to know where the herb came from and under what conditions they grew in. Many of these come from the Mediteranian areas with thin, rocky, mountainous, gravely soils that are fairly dry, arid and in the lush compost they probably will not develop the flavors you want from them.
When we were growing up we learned by asking questions about things we knew little until one day someone said "do not ask so many questions" and usually our learning slowed down considerably. Be not afraid to ask questions and if someone were to say "boy, that was a dumb question" it is because 1) they did not think to ask it, or 2) were too afraid to aks that themselves.

My raised beds are filled almost entirely with compost. I have to add more every year because the compost does shrink lots. The first couple years this didn't work well but after that, no problem.

Yes you can grow in pure compost. I agree that many herbs and many wildflowers prefer a more "lean" soil.
I think for most people, like you said, they don't get that much compost or want to buy it. So most people try to use the soil they are living on, and use compost to amend and improve it. You can use in containers. The commercial mixes for pots/containers may be lighter and that might give the advantages of easy portability if you move the containers, and possibly better drainage, important for container-grown plants.
Laurie

Thanks so much for the views. I may just have to try an experiment next season.

Happy Composting and Gardening to All!
Vanessa