Never mind,msomeone directed me to the soil and compost thread.

I wouldn't personally allow compost to dry out - it's kind of defeating the purpose of fostering microbial life which needs moisture to survive.

my $.02c

j

It doesn't screen when it's wet and I don't like to give it away til its pretty

Wait - "till it's pretty"?

Why DO you make compost in the first place for?

and sure it screens - all of my (moist) compost is run through a half inch hardware cloth screen - once it's mature.

This is a 3 week old heap made from mucho leaf mold, horse manure, household produce waste and LOADS of comfrey. It will not be ready for use until it reaches maturity - ie: stable humification, in 9-12 months, at which point it will be well broken down and screen quite easily.

j

I'm checking out your original post above in which you stated:

"has silverfish all through it. I don't want to touch it with my bare hands"

If if your compost still has silverfish in it, which are decomposers, by the way, this tells me that perhaps you aren't allowing your compost to, well, compost long enough. The silverfish are there for a reason - to break down organic matter.

try letting your compost mature longer.

J

So many gardeners are partial to their own method, it can be hard to relate. When I screen it to give away, I like it to look better than what you would buy in a bag, and you certainly would not want to see silverfish in a bag of anything that you buy. Hence my desire to shoo them off or whatever, so my friend can use it and have her own bugs and worms inhabit it.

I think what some of you are trying to tell me is that with your method, the bugs are there from start to finish anyway, so don't worry about it. Thank you. That's the advice I sought.

Intown where I live, yard space is at a premium and the city prefers that we use covered bins, up off the ground, so the only bugs that get in are the flying ones, until the stage where I can rest the batch on the ground. It's very sludgy and then dries whether you want it to or not. The alternative is to not compost, which I could not bear. Having earned my Master Gardener Certificate in 2004, I know there are many "right" ways to make compost. With the whole family pitching in, we get some fruit labels in there, and before we graduated to wool balls, hubby sometimes accidentally dropped a dryer sheet in with the lint. So, I screen.

Here's a picture of a picture of an old batch of mine, from a magazine article. Chunky enough to build soil structure. Smooth enough to appeal to the most nature-averse city dweller. Worms and bugs can and do find their way back in.

Thanks for your help, I doubt I'll be back. Too snarky.