On Mar 22, 6:57 pm, septemous
wrote:
Hi totally new to composting - we are down in the tropics of south
america (actually got a write up in the Guardian:http://tinyurl.com/348e99) where they seem to do a very poor compost
pile with limestone?

The food we grow tastes great - but I think I can help make the garden
even better with a good compost made up of all the organic veggie
scraps we generate here at the hotel.

Their pile seems a bit shallow and spread out for the heat we have here
- this I can fix.

They also put limestone in with the waste?

My question is if limestone is some sort of activator that they know
about and I don't? (something like alfalfa?) Or is it just doing
nothing and we should use some other activator -- in the
leaf/scraps/activator mix.

A follow-up would be - what activator to use if limestone is not
available -- something that would be readily available in such an
area.

Dolomite lime will stabilize pH if the pile starts to turn
acidic. It will also add calcium and magnesium.