Today's Q&A is about compost and it comes from Eileen. She emailed me and she said,

here's my question. Garden advisors, garden magazines, etc. always tell you to add compost, but never

are more specific than that. If someone doesn't have a compost pile, I do but not enough to

fill a layer on a raised bed, then what does someone actually add?

Can compost be purchased? If so, where? Does it come in a bag? If so, what's it called? I think a better

explanation of what you mean by compost would be helpful to new gardeners. I'm so grateful that Eileen sent in this question because I have a feeling that many other people have wondered the same thing.

And just as a slight backstory of what prompted her question,

on Fridays I send out a weekly newsletter to anyone who has signed up in one way or another.

And as part of that weekly newsletter,

I talk about what's actually going on in my garden that week.

The particular week that she replied to me

was when I talked about pulling out my Roma tomato plants

and then adding a new layer of compost to that bed,

actually I did compost and topsoil together but I added that to

that bed to top it all off because it had settled a bit in preparation for my

next planting and so I actually had a picture of this to show what I did and

that's what prompted her to ask me the question because I just said how I add compost to the

bed and that's one of the main things that I do with my soil. And if you listen to this podcast enough,

you know that I'm a huge proponent of adding compost. But Eileen was absolutely right in that

maybe I need to explain what is actually meant by that, especially to new

gardeners. I have to tell you, this is not an easy question to answer because a lot of it does

depend on where you're located and what sources that you have available to you. I'll tell you what

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