Monday morning – shit-shoveling day. I got a call early from D wanting to know if I wanted to go to town with them today. I said I certainly did, but it was dependent on whether I got paid. Monday morning is payday, but H has been away and J has been cloistered inside his house with some sort of chest infection so my chances of not getting paid today were quite high.
And so it came to pass. I called D and said go without me, then moved to plan B. Remember this?
This is Joel’s take on raised-bed gardening. I built the frame higher than usual because I hope it’ll discourage small rodents and because I need to make my own soil. I’m going with a lasagna of rotted straw, local dirt and surprisingly well-composted horse shit.
Regular readers will remember Mount Joel…
In the fullness of time this shitpile may be remembered as my finest hour. Last year when Ian’s tractor was still healthy I hauled many tons of manure from J&H’s overwhelmed yard to an undisclosed location on BLM land. I figured giving horseshit back to the feds was only fair thanks for all they’ve done for us. Anyway, since then this has become a regular neighborhood resource for local gardeners who don’t raise livestock of their own. There’s lots of signs of digging, including recent tractor activity that isn’t mine. And since last summer’s extremely wet Monsoon this thing has composted beyond my fondest hopes. Usually manure just lies there and dries out in the sun but this is breaking down beautifully. See?
And by the way that’s my brand-new shovel, which I swear won’t get all cracked and weathered because it has a special hang-up place in my shed.
So that’s this morning’s project. Dirt Lasagna.
Then this afternoon I need to get a serious draft ready to send for the current writing gig. Yesterday I went kind of insane for about ten hours, and upon excitedly relating my adventure to the editor I got a yelling at. Everything he wants is in there, but it’s buried under a whole bunch of stuff he explicitly doesn’t want so… Yeah. Time to get more professional.
My principal reason for wanting to go to town this morning is because I need yeast. My working stash, backup stash and backup-backup stash have all died. Fortunately I’m not the only baker in the gulch and I’m free with my yeast, so finding someone I could bum from wasn’t difficult. So this afternoon I have to find time to do that, too. Busy day.
I love Spring.
FWIW dept.
When I started a garden 20 yrs ago here in NH, the ‘soil’ in the selected area was rocks, clay, & rocks. Fortunately, the Mrs. had horses, so I tractored the horse exhaust into the now excavated plot.
The gardener friends told me I couldn’t grow veggies in horseshit, but the plants didn’t know that; that thing grew like crazy (no root crops, though- too much nitrogen).
I till in a few buckets each year, & it’s all good.
You appear to have a supply of chicken exhaust as well…
Good luck!
“rocks, clay, & rocks.”
That pretty much describes what we’ve got to work with here. With pockets of sand. Then more rocks. Oh, and lots of volcanic ash. Really, it’s a wonder anything grows here.
Y’know – I almost suggested last night in comment to an earlier post here that you might want to check that pile. Too – you may find a bonus of sorts in there – in my own piles of horse manure I get a good number of large grubs – almost pinky finger sized sometimes. Chickens would definitely like those!
I’ve been gardening for several years now using composted horse manure and and ~15% perlite. I rarely turn it and usually top dress every year with a few more inches of the manure. I’ve got composting worms that do all the turning for me. I’ll mix in different things depending on what the soil is used for: crushed eggshell, blood and bone meal, ash, rock dust, coffee grounds and worm castings. In the areas where I’m not bed or container gardening – I just dig out a large hole and fill it up with the compost. Our dirt might grow decent plants – but I know I can do better with the soil I put together.
A couple times a year I’ll get several truckloads of horse manure at a time and pile it up in some timber beds (keeps the critters from scattering it around) – I just keep it wet and add composting worms to the pile once it’s ready. It only takes about 6 months to compost. Haven’t had any trouble with weeds either – but that has a lot to do with what the horses are fed.
Plug nickel has a point. When I spread manure for the veg patches and the polytunnel I let the chickens give it the one over before digging it in. If it in there they’ll find it and eat it. Pest control that produces eggs! For the veg patches I rig up temporary fencing not only to keep the hens on the job I hand but we are plagued with Red Kites here since they made them a protected species! For raised beds as long as it is well rotted most veg will plant in it neat with the addition of a bit of sand or grit for drainage.
But carrots do not like rocks!