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Mushroom compost on peppers?

Infinityheat

Infinityheat

I had some mushroom compost left over from making a worm farm and i went ahead and put it on some of my plants and i was wondering if anyone has had any experience with using mushroom compost. Did the plants grow taller, more pods, fuller leaves? Anything?
 
I can get some here and have done so, it looks loke wet brown grass clippings, plants grew like crazy... 5 bucks for more than my dual axel 6x12 could handle... Down fall, Hyperdermic needles in the mix. Gottawatch it...
 
S.S.Tupperware said:
I can get some here and have done so, it looks loke wet brown grass clippings, plants grew like crazy... 5 bucks for more than my dual axel 6x12 could handle... Down fall, Hyperdermic needles in the mix. Gottawatch it...
Click to expand...

That's quite scary.

OT: I use mushroom compost on all sorts of stuff, including peppers.
 
Friggin hell a dart in ya dirt! I would have dumped it on thier front door step, the compost that is!
 
I bought a truckload of mushroom compost once that had a razor blade in it. I assumed it was from the harvesting. Still not happy about it, though. Do you think the hypos were from inoculation, druggies, or medical waste disposal?
 
You may want to check the source on your mushroom compost. Some have a very high level of pesticides, and some are totally organic. I used to get it for next to nothing but these days its getting quite expensive :(
 
2 yards here loaded, but my lil truck dosen't like to tow the load, My friend said he will take his dump trailer down there, I could get 6 yards then. It does go fast once ya put it in the ground...
 
I use it to supplement my raised beds. The original soil in them was quite sandy. I get the compost for free from a local organic mushroom farm, so all good there.

Just watch for high salt content. I havent had any problems that Ive nboticed, but I have had friends that said it was an issue.
 
Yeah they can be high in soluble salts, you probably shouldn't use it with very young plants. And it can also contain a lot of pesticides used to combat fungus gnats and other insects in mushroom growing. The nutrient level is also usually very low. I think it's good for ammending soil and adding organic matter and improving water retention as long as it's certified organic and not full of chemical residue and you can get it for a good price. If not I would try other stuff. A bale of straw is pretty cheap for adding organic matter.
 
I bought some bags at Lowes and tilled it into my garden last year. I was under the impression the nutrients were spent and it was used for amending soil. Is this true for bags bought in big box stores? Am I way off here?
 
You'll find widely varying NPKs for mushroom compost on the internet, from around 0.7-0.3-0.3 up to ~2.0-0.8-2.0. Depends on the brand of course, is there no NPK listed on those bags? There is a study for corn crops that found an average of 1.12-0.67-.1.24. So it's probably about the same as most bagged compost, or a little less.
 
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