Composting

Just curious if anyone has played with using a self made compost as part of their soil mix? Is there a benefit to composting used up root ball (Sunshine #4) stems / leaves or will all nutrients be burned off in the composting pile? I have some plants/soil from a bed (new house so no idea what's been in those beds other than weeds) plus my harvested materials to put in com poster. Yard clippings a bad idea? Any advice?

I compost on my farm, the issue I see with using your own compost vs. store bought is bringing bugs indoor. I do use the compost in my green house with much success, but my environment indoor is much more vulnerable to bugs than my green house because of all the natural predators outdoors.

root balls make great pile material. and sure.....grass clippings are good, but in thin layers. making a hot pile is an art as much as a science. study the process before attempting. some of those nutes will leach out, mostly the N, but some will feed the microbial process too. i compost all my wastes, and collect coffee from coffee house, manure from area farms, and after composting, i feed it all to worms. takes a while to get the system running, but once it is, its a source of free fert's forever.

i am a big worm farm guy, i also have a juicer in the kitchen that produces a bunch of very fine plant matter that the worms convert to castings within 10 days or so.....i use it in all my mixes.

I am having trouble keeping my pile hot, since it shrinks and I seem to never be able to keep the pile large enough to get hot and stay hot