Permies Poll: How often do you add compost to your growing spaces?

I will add a layer of compost a few weeks before planting or transplanting starts.  Then as each crop starts to flower and or produce, I'll add another larger layer of compost to help.

Peace/Heddwch

Generally, I add well made compost yearly in the spring to my growing spaces. My raised beds get topped off by however much the garden has shrunk down in their boxes while my in-ground spaces get around an inch top dressed.

It's so valuable It gets budgeted, but would prefer to use often

I add it whenever there's an intersection of 'it looks like they could use a bit more soil-like something around them', and 'yeh, I'm up for it, today'. So, roughly, once or twice a year. Very roughly. Or, if I'm repotting or transplanting.

I voted "annually" since I do a big compost addition in spring before planting

However, during the growing season I will add a "top glop" to any plants that seem to be struggling in our sandy soil. This is a soupy mix of char, fermented weed or compost tea, wood chips or chopped straw, and regular compost, applied around their roots on top of the soil. Sort of a nutritious mulch that keeps their feeder roots in rich, moist, living soil. The plants perk right up in a week.

I lightly till in compost between each crop. Plus with some crops I use it as a mulch. I’m in the tropics and grow year around. The year around warmth constantly breaks down my compost, so it needs to be reapplied regularly.

Mostly it goes in/on when I plant, but it could be applied anytime, especially if the plants are struggling.

I have also filled a few n beds  and many containers with finished compost but usually I top a bed full of leaves or woodchips with compost, then plant into that.

I don't make any hot compost, most everything is broken down by chickens, fungus and/or worms.

Annually in spring is where I land, but I'll add a handful around anything that starts fruiting heavily mid-summer. Whether it actually helps or just makes me feel like I'm doing something useful, I couldn't say.

I spead my compost in winter, because I always grow food on my compost heap. I would like to do it in fall, but I can't, because the food that grows there has to be killed by frost first. That is always later than I expect. Next it depends on the weather. Rain can make the job really hard and unpleasant, but I like the soil being covered before frost hits.
When I finish in time, my partner can turn the other pile before spring gets us really busy.

I think I have eight of those large black square units with the bottom pull-up door near the bottom.  Seven of them are placed around to put weeds in and one is for my actual food scraps.  That one is located on the side of the back porch where I can easily access it in all weather.  I  try to get to sifting out what I can each fall because in the winter things freeze and get too full and I can't add anything for lack of room if I don't.  

One year, I'd put the (uncarved) Halloween pumpkin in and then paid the price all winter, hauling the compost to the next closest one, still have to trudge through snow banks for access.  That was something that taught me a valuable lesson.  The "weed" bins I have yet to empty, and they have been in place for a decade or more!  When I do, I'll use it on the lawn, not trusting that the weed seeds will have completely broken down. It is quite lovely to have quick access to bins in various beds and I find I will actually do more weeding because they are there.  Yes, I also do some chop and drop, but things that verge on invasiveness do get pulled.

Now that I've filled in the pool and made it into a garden, I guess I'll need to get another!

I slow compost, as I'm never in a rush, especially since I do so much chop N drop, and I simply add it when it's ready.

Additionally, I typically spread whatever I've got after overwintering, even if it's not quite finished, because I like the influx of nutrients and microbes to get the soil energized to start the season.

It depends :)

In the kitchen garden composed of raised beds, I usually end up the season with covering the surface with an inch or two of compost. That is all what I do in terms of maintaining fertility of these beds.

In the main crop garden, I use heavy mulch (fallen leaves, spent strawbales) at the end of the season. In spring, I throw a handful of compost under each seedling I plant there.

For the most part I topdress with compost in the spring and fall, but I also time it around weather and planting. I try to time it for before a rain to get the microbes and humus integrated into the soil. I also try to avoid spreading it when the compost is particularly wet and heavy. I will spread it with cover crop mixed in, below, or on top depending on seed size and germination preferences. When transplanting trees and perennials in the fall-winter or spring annuals, they get a compost extract root dip and top dressed with compost.

I also try to do a fall compost tea spray on all my perennials bark and falling leaves, and another in the spring around bud break until first leaves. This ensures my Johnson Su compost’s microbes have a pioneering advantage colonizing the plants and soil. I give everything a compost extract spray in the Spring before a good rain as well. I do this with 2gal of compost in an aerated, elevated 50gal barrel, or a proportional amount in an IBC tote, and gravity feed through a 3/4 garden hose with a simple valve I adjust to get a coarse droplet and try to hit every plant and bed.

Last vote in apple poll was on November 2, 2026