Allotments 4 All

My plot neighbour told me that his cousin works at a mushroom 'farm' and that he can get as much used compost as he wants.  Is it any good?  Would it be good for mixing in with soil in his raised beds?

I understood that it is good stuff, but has lime in therefore can encourage scab in potatoes. However my hero Bob Flowerdew once said that potatoes themselves like lime so if a bit of manure added it would be ok for them.
I bought it in the past and had free mushrooms for weeks ;D ;D ;D
So my answer is good :D

Oh, you lucky thing, we have to drive 15 miles to pick it up at 2.00 per bag. We use it to mulch up all our brassicas and store it , layered with grass clippings, in daleks. I also transplant brassicas into it, We think it's brill  ;D
Mind you, we've just found out our potato man will deliver it for 2.50 so might go for that  :)

Quote from: Squash64 on November 14, 2011, 09:00:18
My plot neighbour told me that his cousin works at a mushroom 'farm' and that he can get as much used compost as he wants.  Is it any good?  Would it be good for mixing in with soil in his raised beds?
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Yes lucky you.  I use to be able to get it but the supplier closed down.
Doe you contact deliver this side of B.?

Well I wish I could get some at a reasonable price - getting deliveries into Sarf London doesnt seem to be cheap.
So yes - it's ideal for rasied beds..

Must have been asleep  when I posted the above.

I don't know how I put the post in the quote box.

Does you man deliver in South Birmingham please.

Mushroom compost works very well for us.  We don't have a local cheap source, but these guys http://bit.ly/syxm8K deliver anywhere at below £3 for a 50 litre bag.

Love the stuff, it has helped transform my heavy clay soil over the past 5 years. Very much a soil conditioner rather than a manure, it does have a bit of lime in it but I have successfully grown potatoes through it as a thick mulch and they did not get scab.

Quote from: tomatoada on November 14, 2011, 12:02:37
Must have been asleep  when I posted the above.

I don't know how I put the post in the quote box.

Does you man deliver in South Birmingham please.

It's my plot neighbour's cousin - he only works at the place but mentioned to my neighbour that the compost gets dumped.  It hadn't occurred to my neighbour that he could use it on his plot so I thought I would check it was ok first.
Sorry.

It's really good stuff. I got 96 bags last month while they had a sale on. £75:00. I rotavate the whole plot and spread the compost and leave over winter. Spring, rotavate in. A couple of years ago I had a load of contaminated manure, couldn't grow owt but brassica's that year.sticking with mushroom compost from now on. By the way, I get it delivered from Ashbourne.

Mushroom compost is basically the scrapings of the compost factory floor, plus all the fibrous rough crap thats skimmed off the the top layer of the peat bog, dosed with a big spadeful of lime, to make it viable for mushrooms to grow on. As such it has no added plant nutrients.

The best use of mushroom compost is as a soil conditioner. If you are going to try growing anything in it, you may well need to dose it with a base fert, and check the pH, and mix it with some other used compost.

One of my uncles was a mushroom farmer, unfortunately in the days before we took any interest in allotment gardening!  There's a bit more to mushroom compost than peat and lime.

The basic compost is a mixture of straw, manure (these days usually chicken litter rather than stable manure), and gypsum.  The mixture is carefully calculated to get the right nitrogen content for the mushrooms.  It's pasteurised to kill the bugs.

The peat part of it comes in after the mushroom spawn is added.  A layer of peat and lime is spread over the top to form a damp "casing" through which the mushrooms grow.

So it's true that it's not very high in immediately available nutrients, but remember that it does contain a lot of fungal material which will break down in the soil, and it's clean and weed free. 

Although it does have a very good carbon-nitrogen ratio so that most of the nitrogen is available to the veg.
This is american analysis so I am not sure how relevant it is but it does have some figures for nutrient content.
www.mushroomcompost.org/NPK2.pdf

Quote from: Melbourne12 on November 15, 2011, 10:07:53
One of my uncles was a mushroom farmer, unfortunately in the days before we took any interest in allotment gardening!  There's a bit more to mushroom compost than peat and lime.

The basic compost is a mixture of straw, manure (these days usually chicken litter rather than stable manure), and gypsum.  The mixture is carefully calculated to get the right nitrogen content for the mushrooms.  It's pasteurised to kill the bugs.

The peat part of it comes in after the mushroom spawn is added.  A layer of peat and lime is spread over the top to form a damp "casing" through which the mushrooms grow.

So it's true that it's not very high in immediately available nutrients, but remember that it does contain a lot of fungal material which will break down in the soil, and it's clean and weed free. 

yes, absolutely,  i was talking about mushroom casing, which is what the compost factory will make , but its rarely known as 'casing' outside the indutry, and so i refrained from using the word !!   If you buy from the factory, it will be nothing but casing, where as if you by from the mushroom growing company you might get manure and straw in with it. Most mushroom farms ive seen only  scrape and scrap the top casing off and reuse the bulk layer several times.

Apparently you can now buy unused mushroom compost..
or compost as it used to be called!!

Quote from: lincsyokel2 on November 15, 2011, 11:29:50
yes, absolutely,  i was talking about mushroom casing, which is what the compost factory will make , but its rarely known as 'casing' outside the indutry, and so i refrained from using the word !!   If you buy from the factory, it will be nothing but casing, where as if you by from the mushroom growing company you might get manure and straw in with it. Most mushroom farms ive seen only  scrape and scrap the top casing off and reuse the bulk layer several times.

I won't pester my uncle Joe again right now.  He'll think I've gone crazy, since I never showed much interest in his business before!

I'm pretty sure he didn't re-use the underlying compost, but he retired and sold the business a good few years ago, so modern methods may be different.

Quote from: BarriedaleNick on November 15, 2011, 11:28:09
Although it does have a very good carbon-nitrogen ratio so that most of the nitrogen is available to the veg.
This is american analysis so I am not sure how relevant it is but it does have some figures for nutrient content.
www.mushroomcompost.org/NPK2.pdf

What an excellent and informative article.

A bloke I know through work has tonnes tipped onto his plot and puts a thick layer over his plot overwinter and he says the soil is brilliant come the Spring without a weed in site.  :D