I love the Garden Rant blog (http://www.gardenrant.com/) and here is a comment I posted to a rant (http://gardenrant.com/2012/05/dear-pennington.html) posted by one of the site's bloggers:
"This rant is OK up to a point. The microbes in the soil and the plants themselves need some nitrogen to do well and it has been my experience that most garden soils need some added nitrogen to keep things going. Why do you think it is highly recommended that we plant nitrogen fixing cover crops in our gardens during the fall and winter? And for those who recommend using tons of compost to get a garden up to par as far as nitrogen is concerned apparently are not aware that finished compost has very little nitrogen in it. Those wonderful microbes we all love have used up all of the nitrogen in the compost pile to get to the finished compost stage. Compost is a great soil amendment and adds needed nutrients. But I would not rely upon it as a complete fertilizer for all gardening situations. Check out this link (http://www.caes.uga.edu/publications/pubDetail.cfm?pk_id=6406 ) and the section titled “Suggested Uses for Compost.” The bottom line for me is to use blood meal and fish emulsion (truly organic fertilizers) in my garden to help things out. I doubt that by using these products in a controlled way I am contributing to ocean dead zones."
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