maybe Jay would know, amybe someone else may,,,,,,, can you make compost in a bucket? IM not talking about animal manure and leaves,,,, but, how baout sawdust and chemical Nitrogen? The plants dont know the differance between chemical and natural fertilizer,, so, why would compost?

MY land is SO "N" lacking, making compost takes SOOO long, YEARS. More carbon on this place thaj anything,, mostly oak leaves. Since compost needs carbon and "N",,was wondering if I could add the N to it, chemically? ANyone think it would or wouldnt work?

-- Stan (sopal@net-pert.com), November 08, 2002

Answers

It is the soil microbes that do the composting.

Are wanting to breakdown the sawdust so that your plants can use it quicker?

My soil is pretty pitiful here and there is virtually nothing to compost, so I've been using manure teas and there is a lot of research going on with these. It is about the next best thing to the nutrient value of compost, if you can't get compost.

The sawdust can be added to your soil in small amounts and should help condition your soil. Adding too much and it will steal the nitrogen in the soil from your plants as the microbes break down the sawdust.

Dose this makes sense? If not I'll try again or maybe someone else will put it in a better form.

-- BC (desertdewller@yahoo.com), November 08, 2002.

you could water and enzyme it in a bucket . Seems you would do better with a wormbin. Once established, an indoor garbage can wormbin will produce a load of compost every 4 to 6 weeks.

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), November 08, 2002.

If you mix dilute fertilizer with the sawdust you could make a homemade slow release fertilizer.

However, I think that I would mix the sawdust with a good manure tea and use that as a slow release fertilizer/soil conditioner. This way you have the manure nutrients available for the soil microbes and they should break down the impregnated sawdust faster, than just plain sawdust.

-- BC (desertdewller@yahoo.com), November 08, 2002.

BC,, thats kinda what IM loking at,,, what I want, is like those compost tumblers,, 55 gal drums, that you add gras clipping ans such to, and turn it every few days,,, soon you get compost. MAybe in indoor thingy, 5 gao bucket size. Since amnure is VERY ahrd to come by around here,, was looking at a combo, what I have,, and chemical fewrtilizer ( N ). SInce I have to use that alot during the growing season. Adding just sawdust is the same to what I have, ,lots of oak leaves, takes ALOT of N to break it down.

Jay,, could I wormpost with sawdust and chemical ferilizer? Even under some old rotten logs,, I cant grow decent workms around here. I know about the ktichen wastes and such, put I dont think, a person of one, produces that much for worms. The last time I tried,,, it was too wet and turned moldy.

-- Stan (sopal@net-pert.com), November 08, 2002.

You can use chick starter 24% protien as fertilizer .It may cost a little more than chemical nitrogen but think of this . After you use chemical nitrogen , it's gone the next year . If you use the chick starter , the next year you'll have some good colored top soil. So the chick started is cheaper in the long run. Chick started will help start compost cooking.

The quickest way to get good top soil is buy a few round bales of hay . Look around for some that are old and spoiled hay and see if you can get them cheap.

Hay mixed with chick starter will break down real fast into some nice soil.Laying mash may also work ?

-- Steve (unreal@home.com), November 08, 2002.

Rotten chicken food and chicken manure are almost the same thing . So the chick starter works like manure.

-- Steve (Unreal@home.com), November 08, 2002.

Hey stan, do you remember that article in CS a coupla years ago. They told how to make your own 55 gallon drum composter. Looked simple.

If you use chemical fertilizer throw some yeast in there too. That'll aid the biological breakdown.

-- john (natlivent@pcpros.net), November 09, 2002.

since the chicken starter is more expensive than nitrogen,,, thats out. IF I ever come across some free stuff,, Ill remember that. I can get chemical fertilizer for free ,, on occassion,, I also have access to old hay,,, so, Im wondering if I can combine them to make compost, this would be cheap compost, I could alway wait till spring, and TSC have the 50 pound bags fo compost for 99 cents,, free is still better

-- Stan (sopal@net-pert.com), November 09, 2002.

Stan,

Since I have been divorced and the food wastes have decreased, I bed the worms in grass clippings , cardboard scraps, sawdust and leaves that I precompost a bit to reduce heating, then only water until time to feed the layer mash fattener and harvet the castings.

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), November 09, 2002.

Got any neighbors that raise animals and need their barn or pens cleaned, if so, then aks about doing a compost area on their place, once you have it piled up you can water it once a month or so and turn it, nothing special, or haul it back to your place.

Maybe that guy with the saw mill would let you start a compost area at his place, if you clean up the sawdust from his mill. If it is a very big mill, might even turn into a small business if you go the route that Jay has with his worms.

Bound to be a vialble solution, just takes a little looking and some creative thinking.

-- BC (desertdewller@yahoo.com), November 09, 2002.

no critters around,, have a ahrd time finding ANY manure for the garden. The sawmill, has the same problem,, he has 10 years of sawdust piled up arounf the place, without Nitrogen, carbons DONT break down. I can get free sawdust, and free old hay,,, but it stays just what they are, sawdust and hay

-- Stan (sopal@net-pert.com), November 09, 2002.

Sawdust takes a day less than forever to break down even when mixed with nitrogen. But if you have oak leaves, believe it or not, they are considered as greens in compost. Actual analysis is close to .5- .5-.5 and thus a well balanced fertilizer. A problem is that they are tough leaves and readily shed water. In the "wild", they prefer to break down slowly. The process can be sped up by shredding or chopping. Either by expensive chipper-shredders or a lawn mower. It really doesn't take a lot of nitrogen to begin the process. We may use 10# of pigeon loft droppings to a cubic yard of shredded leaves and end up with great humus compost in a few months. At the start, about 5 gallons of water also added per cubic yard. After that, whatever Ma Nature gives. The larger the pile, the better. You want to aim for a core temperature of at least 140 to break the carbon material down. After that, various microbes, bacteria, etc. will take over to complete the process. If you are going to use a lot of sawdust, it's best to just spread it on your land "as is" and let the natural microbes and worms work on it to convert it to something that the plants can use. Even then, it will take several years before results are noticeable. Tests have proven that the first year makes no difference in yield. Second and third year is when it kicks in to affect the harvest.

-- Martin (paquebot@stanknows.com), November 09, 2002.

Stan, why don't you call aroud the feed stores and elevators, and let them know you are interested in rained-on feed? Offer to swap some honey in exchange for the phone call so that you can come and get it. Pet food, cottonseed meal, and so forth has a LOT of Nitrogen in it, you might just get lucky!

Remember next spring you will have chicken litter. Even my half-dozen birds put out enough to fertilize a small garden plot. I just scatter it directly on the garden before I dig or till. It is so high in nitrogen that I scatter it VERY THINLY, though. I fertilize later, too: Chicken manure is HOT, it doesn't stay around very long.

I have had trouble getting my leaves to break down unless I run the lawn mower over them again and again and again.

-- Terri (hooperterri@prodigy.net), November 10, 2002.

OH! Cottonseed meal? I MEANT to say soybean meal!

Stan, I would hesitate to suggest this to some, but I KNOW you have a sense of humor!

Many, Many years ago, an Israili Kibbutze did an experiment with bales of straw.

They lay bales out in rows on their rocky, stony soil and treated some of the bales by dumping liquid fertilizer on top, and other bales by, er, by dumping urine on top. Then, they kept the bales watered and let them break down for a while.

They eventually planted one melon on each bale of straw. The melons in the fertilized straw did well, BUT so did the bales treated with urine!!!

The melons in the untreated but watered bales survived but were small, and not nearly as green as the ones in the treated bales.

Last, but not least, every fall I get on to the roof to clear the leaves out of the gutters. This year, I think I will save the stuff, because it always looks like it is rotting pretty darned well, by the time I get around to clearing it. A gift from the tree that shades the south side of the house, and from the birds who live in it every spring.

-- Terri (hooperterri@prodigy.net), November 10, 2002.

If you have the time to care for goats it would benifit you greatly in compost making.I think it has something to do with a goats digestive system that makes the manure have bacterias , possibly yeast ,that seems to make compost decay so fast and easily ?

I couldn't imagine gardening without the stuff the goats give me .This posting made me realize that I take it for granted , but without my goats I would't have much of a garden.Only thing I buy to add to my soil is Dolimitic limestone.

Stan if you were in Europe and thought like a European , you'd realize you yourself are a nitogen producer.And human manure is used world wide , at least it use to be.It seems like a taboo here in the U.S. .I only felt comfortable to mention it when it was brought up about the urine and hay.I use to compost human manure when I lived in the caribbean .Of course it was only my household members .The disease factor with human manure is don't use manure from people who have contagious hepititis.

-- mr.natural (unreal@home.com), November 10, 2002.

I know about the urine approach also,,, and peeing in a bucket works, but you need to add leaves or swdust to that also, and beside, 1 person can only pee so much ! !! and beer is SO expesnsice,, more so that buying compost ina bag !!!!

-- Stan (sopal@net-pert.com), November 10, 2002.

maybe Jay would know, amybe someone else may,,,,,,, can you make compost in a bucket? IM not talking about animal manure and leaves,,,, but, how baout sawdust and chemical Nitrogen? The plants dont know the differance between chemical and natural fertilizer,, so, why would compost? MY land is SO "N" lacking, making compost takes SOOO long, YEARS. More carbon on this place thaj anything,, mostly oak leaves. Since compost needs carbon and "N",,was wondering if I could add the N to it, chemically? ANyone think it would or wouldnt work?

-- mugu Owerri (mugu@mugu.bia.com), July 30, 2004.

I know you can add N to the pile of oak leaves, and it will break down,,, not sure about in a bucket,, but I did the oak leaves and Nitrogen compost pile and it works fine

-- Stan (sopal@net-pert.com), July 31, 2004.