?'s about composts

After a bump in the road weatherwise, I'm finally able to start my garden. We had a lot of flooding around here and besides being unable to get to most of my backyard, getting to the gardening centers was too difficult. I ended up getting out today to one very close and was elated to find that they had all the composts I could possibly want. Still have questions though. They had the following and I'm curious about two of them. Any feedback you could provide would be so apprectiated. You were all so very kind to provide me with so much information on my cotton burr question the last time I wrote. The composts I bought were -

Mushroom
Cotton Burr
Cow
Chicken
Dr. Earth Compost

The last two are the ones I have questions about. A man at the store warned me that he would not use equal parts of the chicken because he said it would burn the plants. It's much stronger than the others and he said something about the nitrogen. Should I use the chicken as 1/5 of my compost compostion or use less of that?

My second question is whether the Dr. Earth Compost is fine to use as 1/5. It contains organic materials, forest humus, fir bark, earthworm castings, alfalfa meal, kelp meal, soybean meal, fish meal, fish bone meal, micro active seaweed extract, aloe vera, yucca extract, oyster shells, and dolomite limes. It's fortified with probiotic soil mircrobes and endo and ecto mycorrhizae.

They only had fine vermiculite, but I did what was suggested on the forum and asked if they could order course and they had no problem doing that.

Let me know what you think.

The garden center I went to is Pesches and it's in the Northwest suburbs of Illinois if anyone in this area is having difficulty finding a variety.

Based on what they told you, it sounds like the chicken compost may not be truly a finished compost product yet (not done composting) and I would hold off on using it in your SFG. Instead I would go with what you have, or try to find one more source, and use the chicken material to start your own compost pile for your use in the future (maybe the fall garden).

Your Dr. Earth compost seams an ideal one. Wish they had it here. I would shift it though to take out the big chunks of wood that is usually found in mixes with forest humus in them. I collected over eight cubic feet of wood chips out of the six bags I had bought. The chips make a good mulch so might as well use them because they're part and parcel with the compost that is available to me from the stores. When you open your bag of chicken compost, it should not stink to high heaven and it should be usable. If it does stink, then run it through the composting cycle again before using. Hope this helps with your question.

What is the brand name of your chicken compost? What does the bag say about using it. I use Black Hen brand (fertilizer) and the bag says "non burning". I have successfully used it as one of my 5 commercial composts. It is granulated and it smells to high heaven when first opened, but calms down when mixed into the MM. I consider it one of the workhorses of my mix. I understand Chickity doo doo is also a good brand to use.

Kay

Thanks for your replies.

Kay, the brand is one you mentioned, Chickity Doo Doo. It says it's for vegetables and has a 5-5-2.5 on the front. It doesn't say "non burning", although I didn't read all smaller print...didn't get that close. Good to know that the smell will calm down.

Gunny, thanks for the advice on the wood chunks. The Dr. Earth did seem to be ideal.

Landarch, I wasn't sure if the guy at the store meant this brand in particular, or chicken compost in general. It was the only brand they carried.

What is considered to be too high a nitrogen amt. that would burn? I'm sorry if that's a dumb question. I'm not a very accomplished gardener and still not very knowledgeable on quite a bit.

Serendipity3 wrote:After a bump in the road weatherwise, I'm finally able to start my garden. We had a lot of flooding around here and besides being unable to get to most of my backyard, getting to the gardening centers was too difficult. I ended up getting out today to one very close and was elated to find that they had all the composts I could possibly want. Still have questions though. They had the following and I'm curious about two of them. Any feedback you could provide would be so apprectiated. You were all so very kind to provide me with so much information on my cotton burr question the last time I wrote. The composts I bought were -

Mushroom
Cotton Burr
Cow
Chicken
Dr. Earth Compost

The last two are the ones I have questions about. A man at the store warned me that he would not use equal parts of the chicken because he said it would burn the plants. It's much stronger than the others and he said something about the nitrogen. Should I use the chicken as 1/5 of my compost compostion or use less of that?

My second question is whether the Dr. Earth Compost is fine to use as 1/5. It contains organic materials, forest humus, fir bark, earthworm castings, alfalfa meal, kelp meal, soybean meal, fish meal, fish bone meal, micro active seaweed extract, aloe vera, yucca extract, oyster shells, and dolomite limes. It's fortified with probiotic soil mircrobes and endo and ecto mycorrhizae.

They only had fine vermiculite, but I did what was suggested on the forum and asked if they could order course and they had no problem doing that.

Let me know what you think.

The garden center I went to is Pesches and it's in the Northwest suburbs of Illinois if anyone in this area is having difficulty finding a variety.

Serendipity3,

I am really intrigued about your Dr. Earth compost. It sounds wonderful. I have checked three garden centers, and none of them carry it. I was just wondering: Where did you get your Dr. Earth Compost?

Windmere, I bought it at a place called Pesche's. It's located on River Road in a city called Des Plaines, which is a northwest suburb of Chicago. They seemed to have quite a variety of Dr. Earth products.

Hi Serendipity3,
Thanks for your response. I must say, you are very fortunate to have access to such a good compost. I actually had one of the nurseries try to convince me that they had something better. A quick look at the ingredients made it clear that what they wanted to sell me wasn't nearly as good.

The Dr. Earth compost sounds similar to one of the things I used as one of my composts. The Dr. Earth has a few more components in it. I used the Happy Frog brand. So far my plants are growing beautifully.

Hi Windmere,

You're very welcome. I was very fortunate to find so much around here. It surprised me since I'm not in a rural area. Now, if only the weather would start cooperating. Between dealing with flooding and cold temps., I'm starting to wonder if it'll ever get warm enough to plant my warm weather plants.

I had a guy try to talk me out of using dry peat moss with a liquid peat conditioner. I didn't even know there was liquid until he asked whether I wanted dry or liquid peat. He told me the liquid was better with vegetables, but after already loading up on the composts and coarse vermiculite, I wasn't going to start messing up the components of the mix. I've never used it before, and want to see firsthand.

Jazzycat,

I've never heard of that brand, but I'm not really familiar with a lot of brands. It's good to hear your plants area growing beautifully. Unfortunately, I've very far behind at planting this year. Between the flooding, temps, and some family medical emergencies, I gave up on any spring planting and am aiming for summer planting. Hopefully next year I'll get an earlier start.