george patterson wrote:Thank you for the heads up I was hoping to bind the commercial fertaliser with the compost in order to prevent it frim being washed out so easily my area has very sandy soil with very little organic matter to hold moisture its often dificult to get enough manure type stuff to get a heap to cook
Not compost, biochar. Biochar will have more capacity to bind nutrients in the commercial (chemical) fertilizer than compost does. This is because during the charring process many vacant sites for chemical bonding are opened up as the water is driven off and the carbohydrates in the char material are turned into carbon.
One of the negatives of biochar is that if it is freshly applied directly after the burn, it can act as a nutrient sponge because of all these vacant sites. It needs to be loaded up with nutrients, either from manure, compost tea, or if you have it on hand, commercial chemical fertilizer.