How to manage a small meadow

I have about a 1/10 of an acre planted with meadow species.  I have a couple of questions about how to manage the previous year's growth.  This is my protocol right now:

Around mid March (I'm in NJ), I scythe last years growth.  I gather this into bunches and burn them in my fire pit.  I then take the potash and carbon and redistribute it back over the site.

Here are my concerns with this practice:

Am I cutting this stuff down too early?  Would it be more beneficial for invertebrate reproduction to leave it standing later into spring?
Is fire the best strategy?  Would it make more sense to burn some and chop and drop the rest?  Just do chop and drop?  My concern is that is if I leave it dropped (or standing!) I'm creating a major fire hazard in a suburban backyard.

I'm sure there are probably a billion other possibilities I'm just not seeing right now.  I had considered using some of the stems as building materials (it's mostly golden rod, monarda, and your various grasses and milkweed...so reasonably good for stuff like wattle).  I guess thatching could work?  Kinda?  I could also shred and compost, but if someone has made a decent [cheap] small scale shredder, I haven't seen it yet.

Any help is appreciated!    

Hi, Mark

All this sounds like you know a lot more about this than I do.

How about making some compost tea with those cutting?

I mean, by that point they'd already be in the "brown" phase.  There's not a whole lot of nutrition left in them.  But even if I did that in batches, I'd need a lot of space.  When all is said and done, this amounts to about 100 sqft of material tightly stacked three feet high!  My property is pretty densely planted and while I have room dedicated for regular composting, this would quickly fill up that area.  I do think chipping would work - I could just throw that in the chicken run or on any of the pathways.  But again, not sure of any model that's good for that sort of thing.

When do insects come out of hibernation where you live?

Many insects overwinter in dead stalks of grasses, etc as eggs, larvae, nymphs, etc.

Is it possible to delay burning the material until after that period even if you stack it and remove it?  

Is there any reason not to compost it in place? I manage the ditch in front of my house by cutting it down in the spring, and allowing things to grow back up among the cut stalks. It's fast. I cut them down about a week ago, and already the new growth is over the top of the cut stuff. But i'm not particularly worried about fire risk, mostly just avoiding woody growth that the township would feel the need to spray.  I'm always shocked at how quickly things i leave on the ground rot away into the soil if left as a thin layer rather than a pile.  Could you do a test section on a few square feet to see what happens this spring before commiting to a larger area?

Best as I can tell, most everything would have emerged by May 1.  That is about a month after new growth has started in NJ.  I had considered just leaving the piles, but with space being at a premium, I'd worry about suppressing new growth.  I'd also be worried about trampling it if I left it in the field and raked/burned after emergence.  

As far as fire risk goes, that stuff burns like the dickens.  We are talking hot, fast, epic ignition.  When it comes time to dispose, I actually invite friends, we have a couple of beers, and burn stuff for a day.  It's a lot of fun!

My process works, I guess.  I was just wondering if there was more ecologically sound way of going about it.  But testing breakdown rate isn't a bad idea.  I have an area that would be prime for that kind of experiment that's far enough from anything flammable that I'd feel comfortable leaving it.  

Thank you so much!

You could even knock all the tall stuff over with a board tied to a rope. You hold the rope and just press everything down with your foot on the board and shuffle forward. It’s fast and covers a wide area all at once. It will accomplish the same thing if you chop and drop with less work.