Market Farming

[Alex McGregor <waldenfarm AT sprintmail.com>]

Nan,

I use mowings from our fields- coarse cut grass & weeds.  They're
relatively high in N and a 50/50 mix with oak leaves gives me a good C:N
ratio.  Keep in mind that manure from grazing animals is the same as
what I mow, just not passed through the digestive tract where enzymes
and bacteria are added.  One of the big myths about composting is that
you have to use manure.  But there's nothing wrong with using manure
from healthy animals- use what you have on-farm rather than importing,
if possible.

Since you don't have a large quantity of fresh manure available at one
time, you can add what manure you have and some "green" stuff to bring
the N content of your piles up.  Also keep in mind that the heat in a
hot pile is from the metabolism of the bacteria and is not directly from
the manure.

BD preps can add the bacterial inoculation to soil that is missing from
a true cold composting system- cold composting being a fungally
dominated system.  When the "good" bacteria is added to soil, along with
food, air and water, they proliferate and add to the diversity of soil
life where they've died off due to poor management practices.

Hope this helps clarify.

Alex McGregor
Walden Farm

nan and stewart wrote:

> Hey Alex...great stuff....since you don't have manure, how do you get
> your Hot Compost hot?  I have some manure (goat, chicken duck, rabbit
> & turkey) but not enough to get my compost really cooking (leaves &
> barn litter which is straw and hay)...or it could be i am not managing
> the N that I do have (sigh) Do you really think that BD preparations
> (and which ones) can help a cold compost give some of the benefits of
> hot compost....if I am following