Chitin one of the main component of insect and crustacean shells. Apparently feeds a number of microrobes that go on to have larger populations and thus reduce the populations of nematodes by attaching there egg shells with contain chitin. Its toxic to some unwanted bacteria and enhances the performance of Bt.
At one time we used to have (snow) crab frequently. I would rinse the shells well and bury them in the garden (enough so that at one point one of my raised beds was a significant portion decaying shells…). Plants seem to like it and I never had any problems doing it. (well raccoons seemed attracted if I didn’t bury them well).
coast of Maine lobster compost rocks! up until about 7 yrs ago i could go down to thier place in Machias and get it by the truckload. they quickly realized they would get alot more per bag than by truckload. great stuff!
I’m not a believer in what I consider to be magic ingredients and fairy dust anymore. The UC Davis info is presumably research based, but I’ve been doing this stuff since the '60’s and long ago realized that the world of organics is filled with plenty of snake oil salesmen and if you can’t show me the research, I’m really not concerned about anecdotes.
Any ingredients that truly enhance crop production are likely to be quickly embraced by commercial growers who actually keep tabs on production per acre.
Too often over the years I have seen claims about products clearly debunked by research.
I seriously doubt any of these products produce results that can’t be accomplished by using your own compost, although I’m absolutely open to research based info that supports any product. Peer reviewed.
One ingredient that is truly magical in decent soil is water soluble nitrogen.
the micros from the shells and seaweed they use from the bay of fundy is what really makes this compost shine. i used to add powdered kelp and other amendments to my compost to add micros but now use this stuff and some rock dust and all of that is covered. no more mixing and cooking the compost before using it. this stuff is pretty hot too so a little goes a long way. i renew my raised beds with this every spring. ive also read if you put down shellfish products on your lawn yearly, it encourages the poliferation of fungi that feeds on the chitin which in turn will attack any grubs in your lawn because they have chitin in them.
I am not talking about any magical ingredient. I have used their compost for almost 10 years. Comparing to other similar products that I also use, my plants respond better with Coast of Maine compost.
Just another product I like and maybe, others who don’t know about it can give it a try. It is regional business. Known and sold more in the northeast.
Nutrients your plants needs are key if you get them from sea salts, lobster shells, bone meal, oak leaves, ag lime or azomite if you need it you will notice a difference. That’s not to say I’m not a believer in lobster shells, crab shells, sea weed compost, seal salt , shrimp shells, and so on I am but there is more than one way to get there. Apple’s as an example use a lot of calcium. Some people swear by chicken egg shells which I admit they are very good for blossom end rot of tomatoes or apple trees but there are other ways to get there. I’ve composted Japanese beetles which smell really bad but work great. I added m.fungi to my soil once because I needed it. At the time @alan mentioned in my case he thought m. fungi was a good idea since there were no trees here and just grasses here but in 99% of the cases he would not recommend m. Fungi because they exist. The point @alan makes about nutrients is valid. Sometimes products like green sand cost a lot are they really better than his worm castings, kitchen scraps and leaf decay mixed into a compost? Biochar is really good if you make it yourself I see the value but I would not spend lots of money when you can get there in a less expensive way. When he speaks of magic powder like azomite he’s right I used it once saw some improvement over using nothing but the next time I used wood chips and saw better results and they were free. Wood chips are very nutrient rich but take 3 years to break down.
wood chips have greatly improved my soil in many ways over the last 7 yrs… esp. hard wood chips. i no longer fertilize my trees and bushes and theyre doing great. eventually as my food forest fills in i will discontinue top dressing every spring. i agree that using different sources for compost is a good idea. i use whatever is available but coast of maine compost works so well it has cut my need to amend with other things so the cost to fertilize is the same minus my time to mix and cook before using.
Just get one of those dead deers on the side of the road, haul it home, and bury it in your garden. That should feed your plants for 2 whole seasons. I’m assuming those deer ate pretty healthy stuff out in the woods.
ive done that with fish scraps and it works good just need to put it down enough the coons dont smell it or youll have a mess on your hands. i worked for a farmer years ago that composted a whole cow that died of disease, in a manure pile. that thing smoked for 2 months. you could feel the heat standing next to it. the following spring he dug into the pile and all that was left was the skull and larger bones. compost was black and full of worms.
Either am I but chitin is all that. It’s a very worthwhile nutrient for various reasons. Besides lobster just being a good compost. If you have problems with any type of grubs, this is what you want to use. You do not have to buy Bt bacteria for Japanese beetles, June Bugs, or cicadas. Use this stuff and you will attract and multiply the BT bacteria used for Japanese beetles. The bacteria occur naturally all over. I decided to make sure and bought the bacteria and for 2 years used lobster compost. It’s been 4 years since I have seen more than 10 Japanese beetles. It is possible they declined for some other reasons but for over a decade I have battled them. The decrease was so dramatic and I don’t believe in coincidences.
Why are you getting lobster fir $5 when im paying $14 in NJ that just makes on since. But actually I am saving all my shells and think quite often about how to acquire some from a seafood house. In DC it was easy to go down to the warf and get buckets on buckets of free fish cleanings. But seriously like @alan Alan said this compound in shells feeds the beneficial fungus and bacteria you agree our depleted soil soils need. Its only logical if the soil is
Somehow I don’t believe your compost was compost, it may have been on the way to being that, but mellow compost is airy and doesn’t cause anything to rot.
I throw all my household garbage including meat into garbage containers with holes drilled in the bottom. I throw some fresh stable waste over the garbage every time I add it to the can. After about a year I have 5, 32 gallon cans of slop crawling with red worms (they seem to need very little free oxygen). I dump it all into a natural dirt pit layering it with more stable waste and covering it with the stuff to reduce the horrible odor. Fortunately my neighbors are far enough away that they don’t complain about the smell that lingers for a few days, smells like rotting corpses, I imagine.
In about 9 months it is airy compost (now crawling with worms that require lots of oxygen). It won’t smother anything when used as a top dressing and must be a high percentage of worm castings. Very unscientific composting method I have.
As far as anecdotes about J. beetles- I used to get them terribly and spread some milky spore around my property and they have not been a problem for over 2 decades disappearing in perfect concert to the MS app- no chitin included. . But I do believe in coincidences and science. I have used milky spore unsuccessfully at other sites and Cornell says it doesn’t overwinter well in our climate. However, the science is spotty on all of this because the level of research tends to be rather low, especially outside of commercial agriculture.
However, testing products in controlled studies is far more reliable than some anecdotal observations shared over the internet, IMO. If a gardener near me uses some kind of magic potion that produces better results than what I get I would likely try it, but that hasn’t happened yet.
Good sunlight and well aerated soil with adequate N usually brings you most of the way to realizing good results as far as what we can control- as long as we are attentive to pests.
Could be. I’m not at all scientific about it. I called it the mulch pile, until my husband started burying the kitchen vegetable waste in it. It’s basically a pile of leaves mouldering away, with additions of spent tea-leaves and whatever else we put in the compost bin. Because it’s so heavy on dried leaves, it never smells bad. Even nasty stuff like the rotting jack-o-lanterns quickly disappears into it.
Dig down a foot and it looks like beautiful soil, full of earthworms. But when I’ve tried to use it as soil, or even spread a layer of it on top of soil, whatever tried to grow there rotted. So I don’t try to use it any more. I just keep dumping the fall leaves there, and my husband buries the kitchen waste into it.
I’ll add my japanese beetle anecdote – I noticed a lot of grubs when we first moved here. I put down milky spore, and now 20 years later, I’ve never had a japanese beetle problem. I still have some grubs, but not an overwhelming number of them. Maybe that first year was just a good year for some other kind of beetle. I dunno.
