Lets talk poop

[freshfood]

far and away the easiest poop to use is horse.
No weed carryover, and used in normal amounts it will not burn.

Please tell me how you did that!!

I had horses in my long-ago youth, mom used the poop on her garden, and boy, did we get weeds! Maybe it depends on what the horses are eating; it's possible that when they were on hay all winter, they were ingesting hayseeds, but in summer when they were on shorter pasture grass, there would be fewer seeds... I also used horse manure as an adult, purchased from a local horse farm, and that time I also got weeds I'd never had before.

Or do you mean the bagged stuff you can buy at the farm store? That stuff has been baked to kill the weed seeds and is wonderful, though expensive, compared to using your own or a neigbor's free poop.

 

[farmerlor]

We use horse manure. We used to put it right on the garden area and let it age over winter and then work it in in the spring. WEEDS!!!! Now we compost it first, which helps a little but the best thing to do is to lay it out on the garden and let the chickens at it. They pick through it, removing seeds, fly larva and anything else they find edible plus they spread it all out for me.

 

[obsessed]

I just cleaned under the bunny cages and I got two huge trash bags filled with bunny poop. Awesome. I added it to the garden today. I will start to plant next month or whenever my seed order arrives.

 

[patandchickens]

The weediness of horse manure varies. Horses with no grazing or grain, just Alfalfa hay and pelleted food, will have essentially weed-free poo. All others, it'll be between "somewhat weed-producing" and "whoa nellie".

I would have to disagree that it won't burn when used fresh, tho. Possibly you're using it differently or have different plants or soil, or only tiny amounts. But if you go shovelling fresh horse manure around plants, or tilling significant quantities into ground you;re about to plant it, chances are really high of having problems.

Of course, if you are covering a garden with black plastic mulch, weed seeds don't matter quite as much. Otherwise, though, unless you like weeding or KNOW that your manure is from a basically weed free source, I'd say horse manure is the one to stay most AWAY from

JME,

Pat

 

[Madfarner]

There are nearly as many compost recipes/methods as there are gardeners. Here's a review of the basics: Ratio--Carbon (dry stuff such as dry leaves, hay, straw, dry grass clippings, wood chips, shavings),=30 parts. Nitrogen (Fresh manure, green grass clippings),=1 part. It's best if all the material is roughly the same particle size, as in shredded, but this is by no means absolutely necessary. If you don't have a shredder or can't borrow one, don't buy one. You can shred leaves & straw by running over them with the lawnmower (thin layers).

"Starters", like enzymes, or commercial additives, are a total waste of money. a shovel full of good garden dirt has all you need.

There are lots of bins, tumblers, rollers & containers on the market. They're not only a waste of money, they tend to change the nature/type of molds & fungus working in your compost, not for the better. If you know how to use a pitchfork and can see what you're doing, you've got all the equipment you need.

Water: Everything needs to be wet down as you build the pile. It should be wet enough to leave your hand shiny, but not so wet that you can wring a lot of water out of a handful. It usually takes a lot more water than you think it's gonna of you have dry material.

Make the pile four feet square by four feet high. Shove your pitchfork handle clear through it in several places to aerate it. If the carbon: nitrogen ratio & moisture are about right, it should get to 160 F. in the center in about three days. Then you can turn it I mix it & let it work again.

Madfarmer

 

[patandchickens]

Ratio--Carbon (dry stuff such as dry leaves, hay, straw, dry grass clippings, wood chips, shavings),=30 parts. Nitrogen (Fresh manure, green grass clippings),=1 part.

Just to disentangle/clarify:

What you ideally want (for optimal composting) is a carbon-to-nitrogen ratio of something like 30:1. That is, roughly 30 carbon atoms for every nitrogen atom in the pile.

This DOES NOT mean 30 parts dry 'brown' material to 1 part wet 'green' material however. That will land you with WAY to C-biased pile that will take quite a long time to compost down.

The actual proportions of brown-to-green depends on the particular materials you're using. For anal-retentive math fiends, http://www.alken-murray.com/CompostBalanceCalculation.html will entertain you with the equations to calculate how much of any commonly-available ingredients you'd need to create a balanced pile.

Normal people <g> whose lives do not depend on setting a world land speed record for composting rate, a useful gross rule of thumb is 2-3 parts dry brown stuff (leaves, shredded paper, wood shavings, straw, hay, etc) to 1 part green stuff (manure, fresh lawn clippings, etc)

Also, if you are unable to amass enough material to start a large (like, min. 1 cu yard) pile more-or-less all at once, it is arguably not so much worth worrying about exact C:N ratios because it's gonna be cold composting ANYhow. Tho shredding the material into leetle tiny pieces is still worthwhile in terms of speed with which you get finished compost.


Pat

 

[beavis]

The San Diego Wild Animal Park is only 11 miles from my house, I am taking my kids there this weekend for a visit.

One of the features of the park is a garden featuring different composing strategies.

My kids are gonna love that!

 

[simple life]

In my son's first grade classroom the teacher has a big glass aquarium that she uses to teach the kids about composting.
She throws pumpkins in there and alot of other stuff and the kids are learning alot.