Compost vs. composted manure
marciaz3 Tropical 3 Northwestern Ontario
17 years ago
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northspruce
17 years agomaggiemuffin360
17 years agoRelated Discussions
Composting manure vs. heat sterilizing
Comments (6)Steve, when I first started composting I believed "hot" composting was the only "true" compost. I strove to get the highest temps possible. I noticed many of the things your link points out in the "cons" section...LOTS of time and labour involvement, fussiness with C:N in the pile composition, and constant moisture make-up. Also, N loss through outgassing. My reading suggested this was not optimal, and there are too many other things to do with the time. Insult to injury, it didn't kill "weed" seeds.(Actually, the manure I get largely contains cereal grains). To break apart the manure to expose everything to high protracted temps would involve either labour or mechanical input (shredder of some sort) and I'm against energy use for small or no gain. I'd suggest sifting finished compost for addition to your carrot bed...as mentioned earlier, let any seeds sprout and add back in during the making. And as Kimmsr points out, nature abhors a vacuum. You're going to have weeds no matter what....See MoreNursery compost vs compost manure
Comments (2)val appears to be talking about the *lawn* here. I would not be too worried about pesticide residues if was only the lawn, BUT there could be a concern with persistent herbicides in the cotton gin compost that could potentially harm a lawn. I would simply ask the sellers if they have had any complaints of problems caused by the compost. If not this is probably a good choice - in bulk it will be cheaper than bags from HD. As for the HD bags, check the contents before buying as some of these products are hit and miss as far as quality. You may end up with bags of topsoil or other muck with low organic content, which does not meet the definition of 'compost' in my book....See MoreCheap brush compost vs cheap manure compost
Comments (6)The chunk comes from it being sitting around on the outside. If I managed to acquire it when they first deliver it, there are few chunks and definitely weight a lot less than soil. However, the stuff get rained on and becomes chunky. However, even at its best, it isn't as good as the bag of mushroom compost I got, that was fine grain. However, I suspect it had more soluble salt than I would have like. I guess with bag stuff, I wonder if they add fillers. I recall that someone tested a bagged compost once and discovered that it contain less organic material than his soil. I wish consumer reports or some gardening magazine would do an analysis of the bagged stuff so I know what to buy. I think I know to avoid certain products. There was another brand of mushroom compost that smell strongly of ammonia, that was probably unfinished... Paul...See MoreChicken manure compost, in compost??
Comments (12)"Those numbers are the soluble nutrients, however, not the total." There's not much soluble in any manure, composted or not, nor in almost any other organic fertilizer. I'm not at all sure why you insist that the NPK labels/ratings of different sources of fertilizers are only representative of soluble nutrients. That is not the case, as has been pointed out to you many times. The NPK ratio represents the total available nutrient analysis of that product, some of which may be soluble, some not. With organics, little if anything is going to be soluble, excluding liquids like fish or seaweed emulsion. And even those are not fully soluble but require activity of soil organisms to convert into fully soluble salts....See Moremarciaz3 Tropical 3 Northwestern Ontario
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