I’ve been reading up on composting, of manure, among other things. (I just finished Gene Logsdon’s Holy Shit: Managing Manure To Save Mankind
One thing that’s mentioned in a lot of the books I’ve read lately is that compost needs time to “cure.” Like, up to a year after the material looks like good compost. I think I first saw it mentioned in one of Eliot Coleman’s books on commercial organic gardening, but I’ve seen it in other books, as well. But you certainly don’t see it in the commercials and ads for compost tumblers.
Coleman, Logsdon and others say that compost shouldn’t be rushed. That’s because there are phytotoxins in immature compost, which can be toxic to plants and prevent seeds from sprouting. Not the weed seeds, unfortunately…
In fact, you can evidently tell if a compost is “mature” by trying to sprout seeds in it. If you get as many baby plants in a flat of compost as you do in a test flat using commercial potting soil, the compost is ready to be spread on the garden. If more seeds sprout in the potting soil, the compost needs to do it’s thing a bit longer.
And for that reason, lots of folks who seem to know what they’re talking about suggest that chopping things up into little pieces and using a compost tumbler to get the compost done in 14 days or less is going about it all wrong. Too many of the nutrients will be burned off in the rush, and the compost still takes a year to cure once it’s in the ground before the plants can make full use of what nutrients are left.
So – in compost, as in many things in life, it seems that slow is better. Which is good, because it fits my style just fine.
