Knowing your C:N Ratio

If you want to have a high quality compost pile, you should have a C:N ratio ( carbon:nitrogen ratio of 25:1 or 30:1.

Here is a list of some composting ingredients and their C:N ratio's I came across and thought maybe somebody might be interested in. After taking a look at the ratio's for the ingredients I use, I realize I need to add lots more nitrogen to my piles of leaves.

Sawdust - 400:1 Weeds - 30:1

Rice Hulls - 120:1 Mature grass clippings - 29:1

Pine needles - 100:1 Rotted manure - 20:1

Straw - 80:1 Young grass clippings - 12:1

Leaves - 80:1 Kitchen scraps - 15:1

Wheat Straw - 78:1

If your carbon ratio is too high it will rob the beneficial microbes that break down your compost piles of much needed nitrogen and so your decomposing will be slower.

If anybody happens to any other ratios please feel free to add them.

starlight, interesting find. Never worried about it to much, as ignorance is bliss. LOL Will probably continue on my merry little way; but, I wonder what the difference is between rotted and fresh manure. And, is there a big difference between horse, cow, chicken and/or alpaca/lama manure? I'm sure I've read it somewhere before and have just forgotten, but is there a significant makeup of coffee grounds? I get all my mulch from the city when they grind up their tree trimmings. Usually, it sits in a pile in my driveway before I can manage the time to get to it, and a good bit of decay sets in in the bottom of the pile, as there is generally a good bit of leaves mixed in with the wood. Any ideas on that makeup? I know that noone is there to tell mother nature how to blend things just so in all her environments, but I guess I do keep things like this in the back of my mind to help things along a little more smoothly. Always seeking the knowledge, to be used or not.

Yeah, it's really an either-or, you can do fine without this knowledge - but when you want a hot pile or you want things to break down as quicky as possible, doing it by ratio is the way to go.

Really depends on how lazy I'm feeling, lol!

Same here, if it ain't working I keep adding till it does. No big deal, since nothing is ever wasted.

Like you.. I have always had it tickling aroudn in my brain for awhile, but usually like most folks, ignore it and like mentioned, just keep adding and hope for the best.

I want to try and do some cut flowers on a large scale this year to take to market, so went huntign to try and se e what was out there to help me make some really pretty flowers.

Some of yoru questions I may have an answer for the others , not sure about.

There's a big differenc e between rotted and fresh animal manure. Your fresh manure contains pathogens like Rhizoctonia, Pythium and nice little bacterias of ecoli and other parasites that are passable from the soil from animal to human. Things like tapeworms and roundworms which get killed off during the composting heating process.

One thing that did amaze me was when I foudn out that all them bags of composted manure actually barely hold one handful of composted manure in them. What a rip. LOL You'd actually be getting more manure for yoru money if ya gave a farmer two bucks for a cow patty out of the yard. What you are actually gettign is peat, pine, weeds, cuttings and anythign else that been composted is the main ingredients ground up fine. So if ya really want to add manure to your pie and gardens, the only way your really gonna get the benefit of the real stuf f is to gather it and compost and spread it out yourself.

There is a differenc e in the animal manures. The major differenc e is in the composition of their waste. Horses and cows are grass eaters. Chickens have grains and eat bugs and such so ya got some meat goign on there. You also have different ammonia quanities and micronutrients levels. In small doses some of thes e things may not be a big problem but when using large quanitie s over time you can build up salts and possibly trace minerals that won't allow your plants to take up the nutrients they need. I have no idea as to what the exact makeup is of the different manures for ratio's and ammonias and nutrients. Got curious myself and tried doing a bit of googling and the few sites that even mentione d it that I found said that was classified information. Haven't the foggiest as to why that would be though.

Nothign wrong with getting free mulch. It should sit and rot and decompose down and be turned once in awhile if that possible or at least watered. It best to let it sit for about 6months before using it in beds though. Fresh ground mulch like that is very acidic and posionous to especially young seedlings if I remember right.

Composting is a fantastic thing. One thing I have found though is when ya think your pile done and you put it all in your beds mixed nice and good and let it sit for awhile, it best then to get a soil test done becaus e even after you have doen all that coposting, your soil still may not have enough nutrients for happy and healthy plant growth.

I don't have gras s here, just weeds and oodles of leaves. My main composting is of leaves. Leave s of which I found was in actuality lowering my pH down drastically cuz I have hickory , oak and pine here. Now I have to up the alfalfa and vetch to my mix.

Here a link to a very good discussion about the coffee grounds.
http://www.weekendgardener.net/gardening-questions/october-100710.htm

I like his final comments. More or les s give em a try and se e what happens. Now use d tea bags better than coffee grounds. The tea actually helps to control or prevent some diseases in certain plants.

Ya want a different type of manure to add to your gardens. Here oen for ya if ya haven't heard about it. It called Crickett Poo LOL I and a proffessor of Horticulture that was with me at a garden show came acros s these folks sellign this stuff. We cracke d up over it. And like fools we bought it.
http://www.cricketpoo.com/

It look like sawdust, but the whole container fille d with crickett poo.

I've used Crickett Poo and it's good stuff, next to impossible to get here, though. Almost on the same level as rabbit, which rarely burns. It's not advisable to use raw cow, chicken or horse manure directly on your plants. They can burn the plants. Add manure to your compost pile and allow them to break down, that's were your "heat" is coming from.
I'm not quite sure I understand your statement about mulch being poisonous to young seedlings?????? You normally add a layer of mulch to help retard weed seeds and retain moisture in the soil.
Do the soil testing BEFORE you add the compost. It allows you to adjust your compost if you need to to add trace minerals to the batch before you ever spread it.
After you've worked with compost for awhile you'll be able to tell the difference in what's happening to the pile. Since we all do it a bit differently and given the materials that are available local, there is no tried and true, right way. I like using the coarse, because it actually spread farther for me. But I've been workng at this for over 25 years, so most of my ground really doesn't need much of a jump start. I still have a few areas with Virginia red clay, but it's losing the battle.......LOL

Great information, both of you.

I think Starlight probably was refering to the salts again, when talking about the young seedlings. I know steer manure is high in salts; don't know about anything else, really. I've added fresh horse manure as a mulch instead of turning it into the soil and haven't had any problem with it.

Star, I think the reason you ran into the "classified" block is because high-nitrogen fertilizers (the type that large agricultural operations use) can be used as explosives - that is what McVeigh used in the Oklahoma City bombing.

A word of caution:horse manuer is good for most applications, but the worm treatment is still working once it passes the horse, and will kill worms in compost if you add it to it.Mike

Good reminder, Mike! Another point in favor of using composting first.

You're right Pagancat. Hadn't thought about the fertilizer in reference to Ok City bombing. Maybe one of the downsides of all the available information on the internet, since the bad guys "surf" too.

It's tough call, isn't it? I've always believed that all information should be open and accessible, if only because I want to know what the bad guys actually know, and making it secret just means that the people who really want the info will just have to work harder, but they'll still get it.

But I couldn't say that and meet the eyes of the mom of one of those babies.

I understand what you mean. But the "bad" guys don't have such restraints and will gather what they need to do evil. I'm still not in favor of censorship, since I see it as actually doing exactly what the "bad guys" want among other things.

Here's an informative site for C:N ratios:

http://compost.css.cornell.edu/OnFarmHandbook/apa.taba1.html

Morning Folks. Been off the puter pretty much the past few days waitign for my son to call and he finally got a chance this morning, so I can chat again. : )

Doccat5. Did you look at the NPK ratio in the crickettpoo? it only has 4% nitrogen. and they carging ten bucks for that little container. They got a good thing going on, have to give them credit for that.

Instead of trying to eradicate all these pesky grasshoppers, maybe I should try and corral them and make me some hopper poo. LOL

Maybe somebody here knows about gerrbil, rat and hamster and bird waste. I have a friend that has a pet store. Most of it is reptilies and exoctics which eat meat and have samanellia ( spelling? ) so I know that can't be used, but he has those other critters and there waste is mixed in with eith bed chips or sawdust. he throws tons of it out every week. He offered it to me, but I have no idea if this would be something I would want to add to a compost pile or maybe even make a seperate compost pile for. Sometimes free is not a good thing if you don't know what's in it or what it wil do to your plants or you.

I know rabbit is high in ammonia and needs to be washe d and composte d before using, but not to much else about it.

Mike... Thanks for that tip. I for one did not know about the worm treatment still working. I gonna pass that bit of information on to my friends. They have big worm beds that they built several years ago and have been mantaining. They were getting old cow manure and putting it in to the worm boxes with newspaper and when ready were then puttign it on their gardens, now they foudn this horse farmer who has told them they can have all the horse manure they want for free if they come get it.

They brought home one trailer load and I told them they needed to let it compost a while, but went ahead and mixed it with some potting soil and potted there plants up straight out of the trailer. Now they talkign about getting another load of fresh manure and puttign it in the worm beds. Hopefully showing them the post will stop them before they lose what they worked so hard to build over the years.

So that why those files off limits. That thought never even crossed my mind. Forgot all about those no so nice people. grrrrrrrrr

Interesting link. Was looking through it and got down to the bottom and saw Water Hyicnth ( fresh) . This is the first time I have ever saw such a listing. Now I have a question maybe somebody might know. Have another friend who thought these were such a pretty plant and brought some wil dones home and propagate d them. They are being over run with them now. They have them contained, but good grief, they kepe filling kiddy pools and buckets and such with them. They are invasive here and your not suppose d to sell them. They have to get rid of them for sure. Now after seeing that C:N link. I wondering if they couldn't be used for composting and the whats and hows you would go about using them. I would hate to see thousands of plants just go to waste if they can be used for some good.

I know many years ago I used to have some before they became outlawed and my dogs and neighborhood dogs that roamed would always come and eat them. They would eat the bubble part on the bottom and forget the leaves. I worried cuz I thought the dogs would get sick or something but they never did. Sometimes animals have a sense for things we don't, but as fast as I would bring the plants into the yard they would eat them.

Ugh, yeah, I know the water hyacinths have just about killed the bayous in Louisiana, it's so sad. I don't know how they propagate (spread) so if you were going to use them for compost, I'd let them lay out in the sunshine and dry out until they are dead, dead, dead, and put them in a hot pile, just to make sure they don't end up growing somewhere else like the (*@#$*&) bermuda grass does.

I would think about doing the pet store stuff in a separate, long term bin. Salmonella is a big deal in chicken manure, too but a lot of folks use it - I'm willing to bet that exposure over time to the elements, heat and cold does it in. That's one of the big diffs between using something composted and using it fresh, too. In time, it all breaks down - but you have to allow it that time.

I have a friend who works for the public health system - she's the person in charge of any outbreaks of communicable diseases, (she's an epidemiologist) etc. - and spoke of a case of salmonella they had in her county last summer that they're still trying to figure out. They've narrowed it down to some cantaloupe - they think chicken manure was the culprit. Now whether it was grown in chicken manure and not washed off correctly (picked up the bug by the knife on the rind and transferred it into the melon) or if the plant was able to maintain the bug while growing the fruit, they don't know as of yet. I think its more likely it wasn't washed, but I'll let the scientists figure that part out!

Having read the original Rodel book on compost, all breaks down, but should be seperated from other compost at a different stage of decomposition.I would think you could break chicken;water hyacinths, and maybe even horse manuer down, as long as you had a lot of heat through out. LOL, those water hyacinths sound like getting rid of yucca(sp), spanish baonet. They will grow in the road.Mike

starlight1153, I beg to differ with your statement:

Doccat5 You are right about rabbit manure, the large dried pellets are perfectly safe to use directly on plants and beds. If, however they are raised on wire some of their "cecotrophs" , or digested once fecal waste may drop through and may smell along with their urine. That's right, rabbits eat their own waste and recycle it into the large dried round pellets you are used to seeing. So, any rinsing would be diluting the urine, mainly. If raked regularly under their cages the pellets are completly usable right on plants, though dug in the soil would be best.

Rabbits are sometimes called "pseudo-ruminants"...
The rhythmic cycle of coprophagy of pure cecal contents practiced by all rabbits allows utilization of microbial protein and fermentation products, as well as recycling of certain minerals. Whereas the feces commonly seen excreted by rabbits are fairly large, dry and ovoid, excreted singly, and consist of fibrous plant material, cecotrophs are about half that size, occur in moist bundles stuck together with mucus, and are very fine textured and odiferous. They are seldom seen, as the rabbit plucks them directly from the anus as they are passed and swallows them whole. Normal rabbits do not allow cecotrophs to drop to the floor or ground, and their presence there indicates a mechanical problem or illness in the rabbit.
Carol

Thanks for the info, Carol. I do know we still have the greenest grass where the pens use to sit. And it's been a long, long time since we've had rabbits. Raking the rabbit area was one of my oldest son's "extra money" jobs. He did a really good job. Actually, he and my DH have been talking about getting more rabbits. Our area has been rezoned, but we can probably still do it, if I can get the majority of neighbors to agree. My major problem raises cattle, so don't think he'll have too much to say on this one. My son can have them where he lives, that area is still zoned agricultural. He just needs to make sure he's got well built pens and protect the area. They did have quite a problem with feral cats for awhile, but that seems to have been fixed. This should be interesting as my DIL (who I adore) is way girly..............LOL New Zelands might look like the Easter Bunny, but they can be nasty buggers............

Yep, Doccat5, I remember cutting toenails and what a struggle it was. And I remember 40 some years ago having rabbits, they had kits, nest box got pushed up against wire side, little bunny got stuck, magpies/bluejays got him, made me ill. Whew! Gotta shake that image off! I got out of the bunny enterprise when I found I wasn't the butcher I needed to be and couldn't find a suitable one. I only got into them because one of my airhead friends got a "cute little bunny" and didn't know what to do when it grew up. "Carol, will you take it? You know all about that animal raising stuff!" What sucker, I had rabbits, made hutches on legs, sloped roofs w/roofing tin. Perfect nest boxes, right size entrances, (made nest boxes to fit exactly through the hutch door.) Then ended up with pets, more work, (good start on my composting venture, though) Personally, I never aquired an animal I didn't already have proper housing or fencing for. Silly, ignorant people. I've been trying to educate them all, since. YOUR'RE DEALING WITH LIVING BEINGS HERE, PEOPLE, THINK ABOUT IT! (sorry about that)
Carol

LOL - no need to apologize, you're preaching to the choir, honey.