Sheet composting higher
C/N materials in spring is also workable where the land is not
scheduled for planting early. If the organic matter has a low C/N,
like manure, a tender green manure crop not yet forming seed,
alfalfa hay or grass clippings, quite a large volume of material can
be decomposed by warm soil in a matter of weeks.
However, rotting large quantities of very resistant material like
sawdust can take many months, even in hot, moist soil. Most
gardeners cannot afford to give their valuable land over to being a
compost factory for months. One way to speed the sheet composting of
something with a high C/N is to amend it with a strong nitrogen
source like chicken manure or seed meal. If sawdust is the only
organic matter you can find, I recommend an exception to avoiding
chemical fertilizer. By adding about 80 pounds of urea to each cubic
yard of sawdust, its overall C/N is reduced from 500:1 to about
20:1. Urea is perhaps the most benign of all chemical nitrogen
sources. It does not acidify the soil, is not toxic to worms or
other soil animals or microorganisms, and is actually a synthetic
form of the naturally occurring chemical that contains most of the
nitrogen in animal urine. In that sense, putting urea in soil is not
that different than putting synthetic vitamin C in a human body
Burying kitchen garbage is a traditional form of sheet composting
practiced by row-cropping gardeners usually in mild climates where
the soil does not freeze in winter.
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