Compost starters, Boosters?

Posted by: Samoset

Compost starters, Boosters? - 11/12/12 10:29 PM

So I just burnt off the remains of last years garden! Something I do every year by piling up some pine straw and leaves atop it after
giving it a light till/flip with a shovel.

This obviously helps with pests and adds a little ash to the garden. But after doing some reading I'm concerned the extreame heat might also knock the micro-organisms down to a low level?

And I have a lot of leaves I'd like to till in and try and compost it before say late march. Would say a few bags of compost and manure tilld in with these leaves have enough of these micro organisms present. To get the job done?

I have also read that blood meal,fish meal and other such products contain the nitrogen needed to heat things up a bit?

There's also several products marketed as dormant micro organisms or starter boosters?

Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks
SAMOSET

Posted by: rockchucker22

Re: Compost starters, Boosters? - 11/12/12 10:46 PM

With my gardens I add chicken crap and horse manure. Those micro organisms live pretty deep in the soil. I doubt you did much harm to them. I put 20 trashcans of leaves on my main garden today. In 2 weeks it will look like 1 cans worth. As a side note a shovel of soil from the mountians will contain different benificial bacterias and fungus. Every 4-5 years 1 shovel is enough to start a good colony.
Posted by: BZH

Re: Compost starters, Boosters? - 11/13/12 11:23 AM

I've never heard that so I can't comment directly, but I will say I've burned plenty of fields and never had too much of a problem with them coming back. I would think manure would have plenty of biotics to get things composting. Blood meal or fish meal is great, but man does that stuff stink!