There was a supply of high nitrogen chicken poop and lots of goat pellets to be had. Last week they added three horses and really upped the production of valuable black gold.
Lazy me wanted to just dump the droppings on the vegetable garden when it was done and let it winter over. The garden however won't be done for weeks and the feces was piling up. A bit of reading up on horse poo highly recommended composting to kill weed seeds so I was forced into making compost piles to digest my dung.
The end result of a horse's internal processes is no light weight organic matter. They look like small little turds, but I have been bringing them home in heavy duty plastic bags that weigh from 50 to 70 pounds each. I can barely pick them up. We're talking three horses here.
My father's greatest fear was that somehow he would end up living next to a pig farmer. The man had the nose of a hound dog. Good thing I suppose I didn't start working at the posh estate until after he was gone.
I will put all this excrement to good use. Next year without all those sunflowers and a bountiful addition of manure compost it will be the best roadside vegetable garden ever.
Little dollops here and there around the flowers will make them happy too.
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9 comments:
You are so funny with this one. Horse poop is strong & will burn your plants if it is fresh. lol
We use to go to chicken houses & get it to put on our garden at the old place. That's good stuff. Too many weeds tho.
Have fun with your new adventure.
Love it.
Meant to mention that you can make manure tea also. Put some in a bucket,usually 5 gal. cover with water & let set for a few weeks. Dilute with water when ready to use.
It makes goooood food for plants.
Gee, Christopher, thanks for showing a close up of the pellets! I am envious, though.
xo,
Frances
Fabulous find. That horse manure will be great after composting. A friend of mine had horses. They just made piles of it and let it compost. They had bought land that was mined. You can imagine the soil was clay substrate. They turned their garden beds into the most beautiful lushious garden soil ever.
Manure compost can be great. Around here we have to be careful with horse manure, depending on what the horse eats. Pickloram and grazon (broad leaf weed killers) are both used on hay crops around here, and both go right through the composting process which means the manure compost would have a bad effect on the garden. Hopefully you don't have that same thing going on there.
They don't call it 'black gold' for nothin'. I use it on my veggies grown in half barrels (long story) and this year, despite 100 degree heat, was the best for my tomatoes! I attribute it to those horses! Good luck!
bev
Mary I have read about that and there was a case of tainted llama poo in the area last year. I am going to grill the owners of the posh estate on the matter since I may have shamed them into starting their own composting operation once they finish some other large projects, like the barn.
You must have a Thesaurus handy or you are so creative. Such varied words for "end result of a horse's internal processes". Fun post
Chris, you so akamai! Yes, you must compost the "alvine dejecta" [is polite term but means southbound leavin's from northbound critters]. I suggest testing the stuff on some broadleaf less-than-desired plants first, given the risk of persistent herbicides. Maybe you could persuade said posh estaters to go with organic feeds?
I have never found myself with too much compost.
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