I just received a soil analysis of my compost, and it says I have only 2% nitrogen. Texas A&M did the analysis, so I can assume it's correct, even though it's composed of only horse manure and hardwood wood chips. Every other part of the analysis is great - I'm just lacking in nitrogen. Although this is my very first stab at vegetable gardening, I know I won't do very well without it.

So how do I put some nitrogen in my soil - blood meal seems to be a natural source of only nitrogen... would that do? I'm amazed that my huge pile of compost that I worked so hard at, is a failure!

Down and Out in Texas

Welcome to the site!

Think compost is normally very low in nitrogen. What are you planning on using your compost for?

https://extension.missouri.edu...

C,
Thank you.

My plan is to grow household vegetables, with some emphasis on produce I can store for the winter - potatoes, squash, yams and onions. Also, I love vine ripe tomatoes.

I'm just getting into this new activity, so any help or insight you can offer will be most gratefully received!

BWB
Bowie, Texas

Check out feather meal for a slow release nitrogen source.
Good looking compost pile.

kennysh,
I've checked out feather meal as you suggested, and it seems like it's exactly what I'm looking for. Seeing I'm in Zone 7b, I've got time to add the meal well before I start planting. How would you suggest I add it? Could I mix it with the compost pile directly? If so, how much? The pile is about 5.5 foot high in the center, and about 10-11 feet across at the base, so it's a substantial size.

Eventually I intend to put about 4 to 5 inches of the amended compost in my raised beds, and fill 8 to 10 20 gallon grow bags. I can use my tractor bucket to mix the meal well.

So, what would you do?

BWB
Bowie, Texas.

Bwbarton
On Down to Earth web site, said add two cups,mix, wait 24to 48hrs,check if pile is heating,add another two cups. Did not give size of pile.
Personally I have a small pile of arborist wood chips and leaf mold, with feather meal and used coffee grounds composting now(been covered with tarp all winter)
I would have thought the combination woodchips and manure would be ideal. Although hardwood chips would decompose slower than soft wood.
As per my soil test. For my seedling beds I tilled in about 2 inches of arborist woodchips, added about 2 lbs of feather meal, tilled in about 6 inches deep, covered bed with another 2 inches of arborist woodchips. This was last August, beds won't be used till 1st of May. Looking great so far.
Feather meal is most effective tilled into soil or mixed into compost pile. The microbes in your soil or compost break down the feather meal. They say it can last from 3 to 6 months. Starts releasing nitrogen in as little as 5 to 7 days.
Hope some of this is helpful.
Good luck with your garden.
PS. the arborist woodchips I use are aged,probably 1 year or more.

You might need to get over the Yuck factor first, but this will cost you nothing ....
The thread "Using human urine as fertilizer????????" in Ask a Question forum

https://thatbackyard.com/urine...

Kenny,

Thank you for your informative and encouraging post - I'm in your debt.

I think I'm going to try mixing feather meal into my compost pile right now, and then add more when I plant. Our last frost date here is April 3rd, so there's time. The pile has 240 cubic feet (8.9 cubic yards). Now I have to find out how many ounces/pounds/cups/quarts per cubic yard to add.

As a recovering engineer I wish we all thought in metric! It would eliminate a lot of math errors...

BW--

Absolutely wish we had gone metric, so much easier!

Not a failure!!
Compost is for long term organics bulk. Nitrogen is very transient.

Hey Christie!

Although you say your idea would cost me nothing, the engineer in me wonders...

Assume an average individual with an average bladder would take care of a cubic foot of compost. That would mean that to get the job done before Spring, I would have to recruit what few remaining friends I might have to come by my pile and help me out. Say I would have 30 friends that wouldn't recoil in horror, and actually turned up for my Nitrogen Party.

For a compost pile of 240 cubic feet, that means each of my friends would have to contribute 8 times each. The only way they could accomplish that Herculean feat is for me to supply them with almost endless amounts of warm beer on my dime. Kegs maybe. My friends have always loved my free beer!

Hence I wonder at how much your "cost free solution" to my nitrogen problem would actually cost me in the end.

And I thought gardening was supposed to be a relaxing pastime.

BW-

Bw, I think you're posting that 'tongue in cheek'
But I too say why toss good nitrogen down the drain when it can help the garden in some small way?
My dad was an engineer, I get it.

It is possible to collect [urine] over time... As above... rather than polluting the drinking water when you need to go... have a dedicated container... over the winter, you should be able to collect enough... and... just think of all that drinking water kept clean!

Compost is more about providing soil tilth, trace minerals, and moisture retention, microbial goodness than trying to be a high nitrogen fertilizer...

You could just get chickens with the rest of the country... and allow them to add nitrogen as they keep the compost aerated for you...

Looking forward to hearing how the edible garden does!

I had to search Bowie, Texas.
.
You're up by Oklahoma & the Red river...


Are you in that beautiful red clay I saw so much of out in Oklahoma?

Hey Stone!

You would like Montague County. And Bowie is one of those rural areas that time seems to have avoided - when you drive down Wise Street in the center of town, you see the old, mostly abandoned, brick facades of a wealthier time. Even the red dirt of the Oklahoma countryside north of the Red River isn't found here - here it's mostly limestone outcrops and gravely soil that at one time was probably the bed of the Red River itself. Where we live is on the top of one of the many limestone ridges, along with several varieties of white and red oak trees, and huge, beautiful native Pecans down by the creek - all great for Texas barbeque but not much else. There's not much dirt for growing vegetables at all... and the ubiquitous Texas wild hogs will tear up five acres in a single night when the pecans are in season. The name of the road we live on is "Bugscuffle Road" - now how county is that?

So we've had to make our own dirt by hauling in horse manure some of my neighbors have kindly gifted us with, and composting it with wood chips from trees we have gleaned from our land. It's a slower process than we thought it would be, and as we have found, doesn't produce much nitrogen to speak of.

Nevertheless, it is some of the best and most beautiful cattle range land in Texas, therefore the world. Bluestem does well here. Ranchers live much as they did 100 years ago, struggling to make a living from their cattle, and respecting old-time frontier values. Our neighbors are amazing, dignified people who just want to be left alone mostly, but who would come to my aid in the middle of the night every time. Nothing woke here. No neo-pronouns.There are 12 churches in Bowie, all well attended of a Sunday morning.

Having chickens, something that really attracts us, is unfortunately impractical to even consider. Between the resident foxes, bobcats, and coyotes, they wouldn't last long.

We're delighted to have found this website, and to be able to learn from so many talented and knowledgeable gardeners. We hope we can be worthy of your company.

And now you've got us thinking of chickens again...

BW--

bwbarton,
Only 3% nitrogen content in your compost?
Looks like that is actually off the chart!
https://extension.missouri.edu...
Go to the nitrogen availability chart at the bottom, it only goes up to 2.5 %
Judging by this chart it looks like your compost is really a success.

Larry,

Thanks for your comments... but now I'm really confused.

Texas A&M seems to have a distinctly different way of looking at things compared to the University of Missouri. I'm attaching the original Texas A&M soil analysis, so you can see where they show nitrogen as being only 2%, and suggest a large nitrogen treatment to rectify it.

So who's right? Whom am I to believe?

BW--

It looks to me like you're comparing apples and oranges. The Texas A&M report is a SOIL analysis, ie what you grow your veggies in. The Missouri site addresses COMPOST — as other comments point out, not a fertilizer, rather it's an amendment to improve overall health and tilth. I would add the nitrogen (in the form of blood or feather meal or substance of your choice) directly to the soil, not to the compost.

The supposed ideal Carbon to Nitrogen level for a final compost is 30 to 1.

Saw Dust/Wood Chips suck the Nitrogen out at an extreme level as their as its base level is 500/700 to 1 .
I have compost pile, msybe, one tenth the size of yours and it is 95 percent leaves and garden weeds (I pull hundreds of gallons of weeds, mostly purslane, every summer and use them till the heap is overflowing, and haul the rest away) adding weeds to your pile is a quick way, in the future to a higher nitrogen content.

Source C:N ratio
Horse manure 15:1 Dry Weeds 90:1 Weeds (fresh) 25:1
Grass clippings 17:1 Vegetable waste/produce 11-19:1 Dry Leaves 54:1
Sawdust 500:1 Wood chips 700:1 Straw, cornstalks 60-80:1
https://mda.maryland.gov/resou...

You have to add a lot of one of the above listed to your pile, in the future, except wood chips, to get a pile closer to what they say is best.
If you drink coffee, add the coffee grounds every time you do.

What is the basis of your raised bed soil now?

Rpr raises a good point in his final sentence and I should also clarify my previous comment. The TA&M test is designed to analyze soil, so they are basing their nitrogen supplement recommendation on soil standards, not compost standards.

More importantly you should have your garden soil tested before adding any nitrogen or other nutrients.

Zoe, Dr. D, and other Folks!

Thank you all for your sage observations and comments. We're learning from each posting! Please be patient with us as we try to understand exactly what you are saying... it can all be rather confusing...

So now I guess we need to get down in the weeds of how we set up our raised beds... we set them up so the top 4 to 6 inches will be pure compost in which we intended to transplant the seedlings when the time comes. Right now we have all the seeds sitting quietly in milk jugs in a newbie's rather pathetic first attempt at winter sowing...

This (mostly nitrogen free) compost will sit in the bed on what is mostly soil we dug out of the pecan bottom down by the creek bed. It looks like sandy loam to us. This layer of soil itself sits on a base of punky logs and some extra composted horse manure at the bottom of the raised bed in a newbie's rather pitiful attempt at hugelkultur. In places we mixed the sandy loam 50:50 with some extra compost material we had extra that didn't go into the compost pile.

But what might be of real interest to you fine people is that we actually had a soil analysis performed on the sandy loam as well. We carried this soil up to the ridge from the pecan bottom for mixing in the raised beds. I attach that analysis below.


This soil has a higher nitrogen level of 8% according to TA&M.

Does this answer any questions for y'all? We are still as confused as ever....

BW--