compost pile with steam coming out.... compost pile heat

Soil Amendments

There are many forms of organic matter. Untreated sawdust, aged horse manure, and aged wood are common amendments and can be found anywhere. Aged wood soil conditioner, cocoa bean, mushroom compost, rice hulls or apple pumice are usually available regionally. Organic waste from your kitchen can be used to compost your soil as well as additions of rock dust.

Other amendments are: leaf mold, pine bark and bark chips, straw, sand, coffee grounds, grass clippings, shredded cardboard, bat guano, eggshells, grapefruit skins, potato skins, and wood chips and ashes.

Organic matter should be added to your soil before you start a new lawn. You should do this when the weather is fairly settled, so the ground will be prime for planting and the new grass will have only mild competition from weeds. The Best Organic matter to add is in the form of Compost. See chapter on compost.

Organic Fertilizers

Soil, in order to be alive, must have high organic matter, drainage and good structure.
Natural fertilizers add to the soil, improving its fertility, maintaining and contributing to the improvement of these necessary elements.
Organic matter and rock powders form the basis of organic fertilizers, and benefit the soil as well as the plant. As a rule, chemical fertilizers are not a complete plant food.
Organic material contains nutrients which provide the microorganisms in the soil with the materials they need to be active.
Organic Fertilizer mixes usually contain composted animal manure, plant residues, seaweed and fish products, and minerals (bone and blood meal, cottonseed meal, granite dust, phosphate rock and greensand).
Organic Fertilizers should be used in combination with compost in order to develop rich, humus soil.

Compost:

Composting is practiced today just as it was hundreds or thousands of years ago.
The recirculation of dead matter into life is a part of nature's program of soil rejuvenation.
A gardener's compost heap is a process that is going on eternally in nature. When we cut the grass and remove it we are cutting off the cycle. Therefore compost, when added back to the lawn, re-establishes the cycle and returns nutrients and bacteria to the soil. The gardener takes a tip from nature and uses this simple method to build the soil's fertility.

"Compost is the Finest Natural Fertilizer there is" Andy Lopez
The Invisible Gardener

Horse Manure

Among the manure of other farm animals, horse manure is one of the most valuable.
It is as rich in nitrogen as either cow or hog manure, and ferments much more quickly,
therefore being referred to as "hot manure".
Manure provides organic matter and trace minerals to the soil.
Your lawn will benefit by having a thin layer of aged (at least 6 months old) horse manure spread over it (using a manure spreader), and then watered well.
This should be done twice per year or even seasonally if you can do it.
This practice will also benefit the microbes as well as the beneficial insects.
But the best top dressings are made from well made compost because it provides a more complete and varied food source as well as varied bacterial sources.
Run through shredder for best results.