Advice on composting

[Sunshine49]

I had a weed and bramble-strewn flower bed in my garden with extremely dry and cracked clay soil. Over the weekend I cleared the weeds and broke up the soil with a fork. I think it’s now looking a lot healthier!

I’ve just bought four big bags of compost from Wickes which I’m hoping to spread across the bed to improve the soil quality. I was wondering if anyone has any advice on the most effective way to do this.

Should I dig it into the existing soil and if so, how deep? How many inches of compost should I be using on top of the soil? Does the soil need to be wet before applying compost (it’s pretty dry at the moment). How long after applying the compost until I can plant new shrubs and flowers?

Thanks very much!

I'd just sling it on top. It's pretty dry so I would loosen the existing soil a bit first. Water well.
Also, look at making your own compost for next year.

Thanks Bellini! How thick would you layer it on?

I definitely want to make my own compost next time.

I think I'd just shove on what I had. No less than an inch.
Look into No Dig gardening.

Im truly shit at gardening but ...

I did similar earlier in the year, but i put down newspaper first and then the mulch on top. The idea was that the newspaper would suppress any weeds coming up and make any weeds going in a bit easier to get out. Obviously the newspaper will itself mulch down and add to the compost. It seems to have worked ok, although I'm waiting for the weed explosion the minute the rain comes.

Weeds = compost pile additions. Don't fear the weeds. Particularly dandelions. Dandelion Leaves make great chop and drop mulch.
I made dandelion jelly with yellow flowers this year. It was bloody gorgeous. And like local honey.

If you have very dry, cracked, solid clay, I would first work some horticultural grit into the soil, before putting on the compost, which would have the benefit of opening up the soil and allowing a bit more drainage -and allow the worms to work the compost in .

Sunshine like you I started tackling my garden during a sunny spell in the summer .

You've done enormously well to have weeded and broken the soil up and ,frankly ,deserve a medal for persevering .

Don't let such hard back breaking work put you off because gardening can be much more fun and easier .Generally weed after wet spell and dig when ground is not so hard - early spring ?

I so so wish someone had told me that hot and dry spells make starting gardening hard work .

But I'm a lightweight in the heat and the sun brings out the vampire in me .I'm off to down more antihistamines .

Thanks Peridito, that's very kind of you to say! It was indeed pretty backbreaking - I'm still aching two days later! The patch shown in the photos is only about a fifth of the total job too. The bad news is that I've now got a second equally large, equally overgrown flower bed on the other side to tackle next. Like this one, it's got quite a lot of thorny brambles which are really horrible to get rid of.

Unfortunately I was so busy with work earlier in the year that I didn't get round to doing the garden in spring time, and have left it until now to get started. Next year I will definitely be more organised.

Once the composting and the second flower bed are sorted, I'm looking forward to hopefully getting stuck into the more "fun" bit of gardening - i.e., buying lots of new shrubs and flowers to fill the beds!

I can't even imagine doing that in this heat !

I'm not an expert but maybe someone will come along ( or you could start seperate thread ) to advise on clearing other bed .

I;m wondering if covering it with cardboard and maybe black plastic ( not sure of ethics of plastic use ) would supress growth and make later clearing easier ??

With brambles (and definitely when it is cooler) I'd cut as close to the soil as I could. Might be an incremental thing just to get that close. I'd pull away what I could. I'd put a load of cardboard down on loosened soil and then put compost on top.
All that green "rubbish " is great for the compost pile.

Thanks both! It's a bit tricky with the second bed, as the brambles are really mixed in with some nice plants that I want to keep.

Bellini, I dug a big bramble out of the first bed last weekend and the root went down such a long way - nightmare! I can't wait to be completely rid of them...

No chance you could dig out the nice plants that you'd like to save ,stick rhem in the newly cleared bed and then smother brambles prior to digging them out in the autumn ....