Spreading compost

My compost pile is done, almost everything I dumped into it is now black, and mostly not recognizable. I am ready to apply to garden and flower beds. How thick is the optimum amount to place around plants? Is 1 inch enough, 3-5 inches is that better?  I would like to hear from others.

congrats on your new compost!
I think it depends on what you want- weed suppression? shot of nutrition? In my case, I never have enough for the whole garden, so it goes where one of those is needed (or if I have mulch and I'm putting a corner of a bed to sleep for the winter, for example). Generally I try to add maybe 2 inches, but if I had infinite quantities I would heap that black gold everywhere!!! I don't think you can go wrong.

More is generally better, but if limited in supply, I think more than 2” gets diminishing returns. This is with the exception of just starting out with dead dirt and building a standard raised bed or hugel (its virtually always worth it to bury some wood at the bottom of any bed) in which case I’d go for 4-6” compost on top if possible. In any case, i’d then protect the compost with 2-6” of arborist woodchips from a clean source. Compost is also a great conveyor of organic fertilizers, and allows us to use less of it due to making it easily available to plants, so if adding any mix that in with the compost.