Kate Since chicken manure is so "hot" with nitrogen and can kill plants if not fully composted, if you already have it, why don't you mix it with some other compost away from your veggies and gradually add it later. You'll probably be okay if you've added composted steer manure to the beds recently. It's true that some years just aren't very productive due to factors beyond our control. For instance, if you had periods of chilly weather after you planted corn, it's quite possible it just never thrived. Same is true for other plants. As for your worries about soil nutrition and wondering if a failure to add compost for a couple of years had anything to do with your garden's poor performance, you'd probably really benefit from a soil test to see if it's low in needed nutrients. While composting certainly improves soil texture, it also provides "food" for the plants, so I'd start there. Speaking of soil texture, do you have raised beds? If so, prior years' compost added to them gradually mixes with the soil beneath and enriches it nutritionally and texture-wise. I understand your disappointment, but your soil might not be as undernourished as you may fear.

The lady I got the rabbit manure from was trying to sell it for $5 a bag but gave me three bags containing about 40 pounds each for free as a free sample, but I had to clean out her chicken coop for free to get the free chicken manure she gave me too. She also gave me as much horse manure as I wanted for free, so I took 11 five gallon buckets of that. The horse manure was partially composted. But the rabbit manure had a lot of straw and grass and twigs and rabbit hair in it, and even a piece of plastic that looked like it was part of a radio. She said she wanted to start a business selling through home depot, but she will have to dry the stuff out and screen all the garbage out if she expects to do that. I used up 80 pounds of the stuff so far planting the one Costata Romanesque Zucchini and five Kobacha squash. BTW, I only got one and a half 5 gallon buckets of the chicken manure, but that stuff smells so bad I won't get anymore even for free. I spread it around one of my Avocado trees hopeing it would burn the bermuda grass, but the Bermuda is growing right through it. I can smell the chicken manure 70 feet away if the wind is blowing my way. I read on one forum some guy wanted to put ten tons of chicken manure on his garden. Hope he didn't do it because you would probably be able to smell his property a mile away. Once I mix the rabbit manure with clay and put it in a planting hole it doesn't smell too bad.

I don't understand any of the complaints. I guess I'd have to see the stuff. Some changes occur because people have requested it. Sand is not just an additive. Soil is rock that has been ground over millions of years (aka sand) and organic material. . . so why is that bad? It helps with aeration and drainage in the right ratios. Sand isn't just glass. It's the ground up minerals the plants get their micronutrients from. Super fine sand with water (clay) is what is below your natural topsoil that the plants are drawing up. If the plants you compost didn't have this available, your compost would soon be worthless by itself. Actually, you wouldn't have compost because you wouldn't have any plants to put in it. They would never fruit to reproduce. Sand would make the bags heavier and would cost a lot to procure for the simple reason of "filler". It costs a lot of money to ship sand as it is so heavy. It would probably be cheaper to leave it out if it weren't for the fact that minerals are good for soil. It would be much cheaper, if the goal was to "fill", to just use unfinished composted sticks and such from green dumps and tree surgeons. Before automatically assuming you are getting filler, check with the company that makes it and see if there is another reason they added it. You might find it to be a superior product. In case nobody knows, some sands are highly recommended as organic soil amendments in every book on organics I've ever read. Surely someone here uses green sand. . . According to Garden Web (Preparing a New Garden), your soil should be 40% sand.

My reasons for composting are: First, to help my own gardening efforts. Not so much for the sake of saving the planet (although that's nice too), but for the sake of saving some money! Having dual control of the finances with my wife, we at times disagree about where the money should be spent. If I can get fertilizer for no expenditure of money, then I get as much room in the yard as necessary for my gardening adventures. Vermicomposting is just another extension of this system - but she'd prefer it be outside. So, an outdoor space is to be dedicated to worming! Second, for school the vermicomposting (and standard composting) are in an effort to teach students the beauty of the carbon cycle in a much more elegant and convincing way. We currently have a small veggie garden, and adding the composting piece is just the next logical step. Having vermicomposting available will enable the students to study composting up close, even in the winter months. Who knows, maybe some students will like the idea enough to actually do it themselves at home. And maybe they will see how easy a "Victory" garden can actually be, and more importantly (at least for me) how much better the veggies taste straight out of your own garden, when you grew them yourself!