The Helpful Gardener
Mod
Posts: 7491
Joined: Mon Feb 09, 2004 9:17 pm
Location: Colchester, CT

As you are composting it you are mixing it with carbons (cedar chips, etc.) and therefore making it available to biology that will lock it up as protein. That's the best possible outcome and on the scale you are talking about, good practice. Fukuoka-sensei used a little chicken manure on his fields along with straw. Don't fret Gerrie; you are getting it exactly right...

Commercial composting like they are doing doesn't do the nice job of mixing in the other bits and leaves a lot of gassed off nitrogen and a lot of free urea to dissolve into water. Just not the same thing. It's really a matter of scale...

HG

The Helpful Gardener
Mod
Posts: 7491
Joined: Mon Feb 09, 2004 9:17 pm
Location: Colchester, CT

It will fire up a compost heap really well Gerrie. Add lots of carbon (paper, wood scraps, twigs and leaves of trees, sawdust or shavings) and you will have a really great fertilizer in a year. All the carbon will help bind it so it gets used, and doesn't end up in the water table...

HG



Return to “Vegetable Gardening Forum”