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 Compost Activators Keep Your Pile Cooking!
Excerpt from Let it Rot!, by Stu Campbell
Don't forget that, given enough time, any biodegradable material will eventually rot. We have learned something about some of the things that could go into composting systems to make up the bulk of the final product. Now we need to think about some sort of activator, a catalyst or "starter" that will get things going micro biologically, an accelerator that can expedite the natural decomposition process. Activators are more than special ingredients that add "sugar and spice" to the compost. They are vital elements - simple as they may be - in the potluck recipe you are concocting. Trying to make good compost without an activator is like trying to make concrete without cement.
One of history's earliest records having to do with gardening tells us that the ancient Babylonians used the blood from camels and other creatures (one source tells us that they preferred human blood) as a compost activator. Barbaric as this may seem to the squeamish twentieth-century mind, it should be noted that a great many successful composters use dried blood or blood meal - which is collected at slaughterhouses, dried, and packaged - as a compost activator today. I have used it myself. As long as it is dry, it is nearly odorless and quite clean. It is no more than a very dark red, almost black, powdery substance. I have no qualms at all about picking it out of the bag with my bare hands and throwing it on the pile.
This is not to suggest that you should worry about getting your hands on anything as exotic or expensive as blood meal to use as an activator for your compost. If you do use it, it can be put to even better use as a fertilizer or pest repellent. Sprinkle some around the edges of your garden space or right in the rows among young beans and peas. Woodchucks and rabbits, who love nibbling on such tender young things, seem to be frightened by its scent. Dogs, unfortunately, think it smells great, and will do their best to lick it up.
Remember: By adding a compost starter to your pile all you are trying to do is to provide a nitrogen-protein source that will feed the micro community. Once the micro community begins working and reproducing, your compost pile will be functioning near its top efficiency.
Finished compost and soil are also considered activators because they provide microorganism and enzymes. Commercial products that contain dormant bacteria and fungi are another kind of activator.
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NATURAL COMPOST ACTIVATORS
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Alfalfa meal
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Compost
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Hoof meal
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Blood meal
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Cottonseed meal
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Horn meal
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Bone meal
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Fish meal
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Manure
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