spiceoflife's Blog

Eureka!...I mean, you reek ah!...er, I mean, Urea!
Apr 22, 2008 | 8:37 PM PST
Tags: Urea , compost , nitrogen , green stuff

I was going to post this in the compost thread, but it was a pretty long so I'm putting it in my blog instead.

So, I had off from work on Monday. It's Patriots Day here in Massachusetts, the hub of the American Revolution, and many years ago they made it a state holiday. There are lots of flags flying, lots of wearing of red, white and blue, and the running of the Boston Marathon where people from all over the world descend upon the state and run themselves into the ground.

Me? I decided to celebrate working in my victory garden and starting a new spring compost pile. But I had a problem. All I had was brown stuff. Being spring, I didn't have a bunch of fully grown, recently harvested, green stems and such. I only had all of the brown leaves and spent grass I raked from around the yard and under the grape vines. So what do I do? I could just make the pile with just the brown stuff, but it would never heat up respectably and it would take too long to break down. (I like my women like I like my compost piles - tall and hot. Sorry, I couldn't resist throwing that in.)  I'm going to need this stuff in like a month when my young plants start taking off. I had to get some green stuff, or the equivalent of green stuff, i.e., I needed a source of nitrogen.

Off to Agway!

Looking around I found some likely candidates - blood meal - this stuff is a great source of nitrogen, about 40% by weight, but it was a little pricey. I had used it in the past with good success. This was a possibility, but I wanted to see what else I could find.

Next, I found cottonseed meal. This wasn't as high in nitrogen as the blood meal, but still respectable. I had also used this to good effect. Plus, it was plant based, which I liked. The only problem here was that they only had the 25 pound bag for $27.00. Moving on.......

This was when the Agway employee asked me if I needed any help. They're like that there. (No, I don't work for Agway, smarta$$!) I told him my dilemma - I need a nitrogen source and I don't want to spend a lot of money. Voila! He shows me Urea. It's made by Espoma, it's organic, it's 45% nitrogen, and it's only $10.00 for a 5 pound bag. Sold!

With a few thank yous exchanged I take my compost supercharger back home and dutifully build my yard-waste lasagna by layers - brown leaves, water, sprinkle a handful or two of urea, a couple shovel-fulls of almost-finished compost. Repeated 5-10 times. Pop the cover on it and bake in the sun for 24 hours.  Yummo!

I get satisfaction out of doing things well, and this includes making a good compost pile.  Today, I get out of work and dash home to check on it. I grab my turning fork and start turning it over. And yep, I can feel that heat starting already! But then, I notice the smell.  It's unpleasant, but not overwhelming.  And there is the definite twang of ammonia. Darn it, I put in too much urea! The wee little beasties have too much nitrogen and can't metabolize it all and are just releasing it as ammonia. The ammonia smell was weak, and I didn't see any of the urea pellets in the pile, so I'm hoping that this is as bad it will get.  I'm going to need to turn it every day or two until the smell goes away.

Anyway, lesson learned. In the future, a half of a handful of urea per layer will probably suffice when using it in place of the green garden scraps in a compost pile.

If I had thought about it, this would have made a good video clip as part of my compost series - "Choosing of the green! Sources of nitrogen to get your compost pile fired up."

Regards,

Robe
rt