Compost isn’t just nutrients — it’s biology, and half-broken-down food for your soil.
Fresh green material (kitchen scraps, grass, soft trimmings) tends to favor bacteria: fast decomposers that love nitrogen-rich food.
Woody, tougher “browns” (twigs, chips, straw, dry leaves, cardboard) tend to favor fungi: slower decomposers that can handle lignin and long-term carbon.
When you spread compost, you’re not only feeding plants. You’re also adding microbes and pre-digested organic matter that helps kickstart the soil food web.
And you don’t have to use the same compost everywhere: you can use (or mix) different batches depending on what you’re feeding — more bacterial-leaning for quick-growing annuals/veg, and more fungal-leaning for perennials, shrubs, and trees.
