Frequently Asked Questions

You should compost because it is good for your soil. One of the most important components for improving soil fertility is organic matter. Organic matter improves soil structure as well as water and fertiliser efficiency, ultimately leading to healthier plant growth.

Compost itself is not a growing medium, but a soil conditioner or soil amendment. It is organically rich but more of a good thing is not necessarily better. Using excessive amounts can create too much warmth for the plant roots and may not provide adequate drainage. Apply approximately a 3cm layer and mix it into your soil to provide the right mix

Yes, you can pick up from Jeffries directly. We are located inside the Wingfield Waste and Recycling Centre at 412 Hanson Road North, Wingfield SA. Or, you can pick up from one of or fantastic reseller’s closest to you. Find out what reseller is closest to you here.

Alternatively you can order online and get it delivered to your driveway

Mulch works by providing a blanket of nutrient rich organic matter that covers the soil. Just like a blanket for people, this blanket does lots of things depending on the ‘type’ and ‘thickness’ of the blanket. Many areas in southern Australia have hot, dry summers and cold, wet winters and often also have nutrient poor, thin soils making gardening a challenge for all of us. Mulch helps keep soil moist during dry periods, cool in hot times and warm in cold times. More than that mulch breaks down to improve soil, provides food and homes for important bacteria and microbiologicals and helps to control weeds

A heavier coarse mulch will be more effective in windy places than finer light mulch. It is very important to mulch if your garden is exposed to winds as the mulch will help to protect the soil from drying out. You may find you need to top up your mulch more frequently if exposed to wind. You could use our, Forever range or Gardeners Choice mulch if your garden is exposed to winds.

If you are wanting a mulch to break down and add organic matter to your soil quickly you would choose a fine mulch like our Jeffries Forest Mulch. This is a much finer mulch, meaning that the mulch will break down faster.

Serious gardeners will tell you that the best time to apply your organic mulch is twice a year, at the end of Autumn and at the beginning of Summer.

A late Autumn mulch will provide a ‘blanket’ to keep the soil warm over the cold winter period.  Mulching at this time also helps suppress the winter and spring weeds and provides organic matter which can break down ready to feed your plants in springtime.

The second mulch time is to top up your mulch to 8 – 10cm deep at the end of Spring before the searing heat of summer.  This is a particularly important time to mulch to keep the moisture in the soil and to keep the soil cool, to maintain weed control and to provide the best insurance for keeping your garden thriving over summer.

You can mulch more or less often than this depending on your soil, climate, weeds, the look you want for your garden and the type of mulch you are using.  Course mulch takes longer to break down than fine mulch.

Because we want the mulch to provide long term nutritional benefit for our plants and return carbon to the soil as well as providing weed suppression and temperature control the best mulch is an organic, composted mulch. 

An organic composted mulch will decompose and improve soil fertility and organic content providing long term benefits for your garden and plants.  A thick layer of organic mulch will also provide good weed suppression and will keep soil cool in the heat of summer, and warm through the winter months which is good for soil structure as well as for maintaining the microbial diversity in the soil.

The best mulch you can use is organic and composted mulch.  When organic matter is composted, then screened for size, you can be sure that the mulch does not contain harmful levels of pathogens and things like weed seeds.  Mulches that haven’t been composted may contain harmful levels of pathogens like e-coli and salmonella, and often contain weed seeds that then infest your garden.

For more information on why you should use an organic composted mulch click here.

 Serious gardeners will tell you that the best time to apply your organic mulch is twice a year, at the end of Autumn and at the beginning of Summer.

 A late Autumn mulch will provide a ‘blanket’ to keep the soil warm over the cold winter period.  Mulching at this time also helps suppress the winter and spring weeds and provides organic matter which can break down ready to feed your plants in springtime.

 The second mulch time is to top up your mulch to 8 – 10cm deep at the end of Spring before the searing heat of summer.  This is a particularly important time to mulch to keep the moisture in

 Jeffries mulch is composted and so has less pathogens than un-composted mulch.  Like any garden product we do recommend using gloves when you apply it. The colour that we use for our Forever Range of mulch is organic and not poisonous if any creatures eat it. 

However, if mulch has been consumed we recommend seeking medical advice.

Mushrooms & fungal growth in woody mulch products is common during wet, cool & humid periods. This is part of the natural breakdown process.

We recommend raking the mulch layer to help aerate it and dry it up. We also like to remind you to use protective gloves and dust masks when raking.

1 unit = 0.76m3 (or one cubic yard). To put this in perspective, this is approximately one 6×4 trailer load.

$35 per truck. One truck can deliver a maximum of 8 UNITS – which is what you can buy on our online shop. Anything over 8 UNITS will incur a second charge of $35.

Also, only $10 shipping for any number of bags!

Currently, Jeffries does not have Afterpay, Zip Pay or other similar buy now pay later systems.

We take all organics…

• If it has been alive, you can put it in our bins. – all animal, bird, seafood, products including dairy and shells
• If it has been grown, you can put it in our bins. – all vegetable and fruit products, paper towel, shredded paper and tissues
• If it is made from something that has been alive, you can put it in our bins, – bread, tea bags, coffee grinds…

AND

• If it is Compostable packaging that meets the Australian Commercial Composting Standard AS 4736, you can put it in our bin.

Several factors determine whether councils will accept dog poo, such as how frequently the green bin is collected and how and where it is processed. Commercial Composters such as Jeffries use intense heat to neutralise any harmful bacteria so the compost is safe to use on plant and food crops.

Please check with your local council to confirm that you can put dog poo in your green bin.

A benchtop caddy, which is a great way to collect the food scraps to carry out to the green bin. You can line the caddy with newspaper or a compostable liner, simply wrap the scraps in newspaper or put them in loose into your green bin.

Any! If your council accepts food scraps, any fruit, vegetables, meat scraps (cooked or raw including bones), dairy products, bread, teabags and coffee grounds, eggshells, pizza boxes, shredded paper, tissues and paper towel can all be placed in the green bin to be recycled back into compost.

Food scraps will smell in any bin regardless (it is the nature of that type of material). To help reduce the odour you can freeze potentially smelly scraps in the freezer until your green organics collection day. Placing green organic material, such as leaves, shredded paper and lawn clippings on top of food in the green organics bin can also decrease odour, as can leaving your lid open occasionally to let air into your bin to reduce the (extra) smelly bacteria that likes to chomp on your organics. Another handy tip is wrapping all food in newspaper or using compostable bags/caddy liners.

You can put your compostable plastics in the compost bin as long as they meet the Australian Commercial Composting Standard AS 4736 or are Certified Home Compostable to AS 5810.  This standard is the only one that has a guaranteed toxicity test to guarantee safety for worms and plants and correctly compost at Jeffries facility.

For more information click here

Any non compostable materials cannot go into our bins.  This includes:

• Plastic – bottles, bags, meat trays, cling wrap, packaging
• Paper products with plastic or other lining in them – milk cartons, waxed paper, cardboard, paper cups/plates (unless they meet the standard)
• Plastic packaged food
• Stone, metal

For councils that Jeffries recycles for, the organic material will be transformed into premium compost that is then used to improve the soil and grow more plants.
For more information on what happens to your organic material click here.

Yes, you can put shredded paper into the compost bin.  You can also put paper towels and serviettes into the bin.

There is still a vast amount of food scraps going into the waste bin and sent to landfill (‘the dump’) where they create methane, a greenhouse gas with 21 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide (CO2). Wasted food also wastes the energy, water, money and resources used to produce, process, store and transport the food. Recycling food allows it to be reused in a sustainable manner and processed into quality Organic Compost and returned into the garden to produce more vegetables, truly closing the loop on organics recycling.