Feeding hungry soil

One of my annual tasks, which I like to complete before the end of the year, is mulching the vegetable and fruit plots. This involves wheel-barrowing about four cubic metres of compost and spreading a 4" layer across the two 20' x 80' vegetable plots. I don't dig it in, just let it naturally incorporate itself into the soil over the next few weeks and months. Being on hungry sandy soil it can take as much organic matter as can be applied. 

I still have another bay of compost, that is another cubic metre, ready for the flower beds in early Spring. This needs to be spread with a bit more finesse. I also have two bins of my 'special reserve' compost saved for the greenhouse beds. This is a richer compost where I have been more selective as to what I add to it. There is also a compost bay of spent straw previously used for livestock bedding which is on a slow burn. Straw is slower to rot down unless there is a large amount of manure incorporated into it as you would have from mucking out cattle sheds, for example. 

In early Autumn I put fresh manure (bagged up into a pillowcase) to soak in the liquid manure barrel for feeding the greenhouse plants and flower containers during the Summer.

All-in-all, I estimate I produce about five tonnes of compost each year, guessing that each cubic metre of fully rotted down compost is about one tonne. About the same as the one tonne bulk sacks you can order from DIY supplies. All of the compost is generated from within the smallholding and so goes around in an organic cycle.