The message
from Inge Jones contains these words:

In article ,
says...

If you plan on making your own compost pile you can use the bucket as a
starter. If not then yes you can spread the compost like you would mulch.
The nutrients will leach into the ground and be taken up by the
plants. If
you bag your grass cuttings you can use that as well which will retain
moisture. In the fall the layer of mulch can be turned into the soil. I
think of it as a continuous composting operation. Once every two weeks I
spread a little 10-10-10 on the surface of the "composting mulch" to
assist
the process.

How do people stop the level of their soil rising too much if they keep
adding these mulches? Is there somewhere you can dispose of the old
stuff?

The last thing you want to do is dispose of precious old stuff! It's
black gold.

Mulched soil doesn't "rise up too much". As the mulch material
decomposes it shrinks; worms drag it down, eat digest and expell it, and
ultimately, plants feed on the broken down components. I often pile on
mulch at least 6 inches thick on the soil surface; by the end of a
growing season it will have completely disappeared, the soil is at much
the same level as it was before mulching...but much richer.

Think about it; mulch becomes the humus in soil. Plants are built from
what they extract from the humus. Left to their own devices, they
ultimately return to the soil when they die, to become humus in their
turn. When we pull out, or prune plants, we're interrupting that cycle
of soil-replenishment and taking something away. In other words, beds
that are continually cropped, whose soil is not replenished with
soil-building material, gradually shrinks.

Janet.