Homestead mailing list

["Lynn Wigglesworth" <lynnw1366 AT hotmail.com>]

My 'barn scrapings' is manure with waste hay. I put it in a big pile during 
the summer. The next spring I spread it out a little (still 2' thick) and 
plant winter squash on it. The squash doesn't seem to mind that it isn't 
completely composted yet, but the weeds haven't found the pile, so it's 
carefree gardening at it's best. Between the composting and the dark 
sun-absorbing color, it stays warmer than the rest of the garden. I get a 
good crop of winter squash for no work from a pile of compost I wouldn't 
otherwise be using yet.

The next spring I'll either move the compost where I need it or till it in 
where it is and make a new bed; it makes a nice productive bed for a couple 
years before it needs anything added.

Lynn Wigglesworth
Tioga Co. PA
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Clansgian AT wmconnect.com>
To: <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Friday, February 20, 2009 10:44 AM
Subject: Re: [Homestead] Too quiet


> > >I'm interested in seeing what the new people's manure pile looks like.
> > Hope it's some aged stuff, too.
>
> For several years I went by or went to a stable whose manure pile had been
> there for six or eight years undisturbed.  I hauled countless pu-loads 
> onto the
> garden and corn plots.  Then from another horse barn I had the opportunity 
> to
> get one or two loads a week where someone from here was going there 
> anyway.
> In other words, only the extra gas to haul a load over what it would take 
> for
> the empty truck ... no time or dedicated trip involved.  But it was fresh 
> stall
> manure with the bright new wood shavings.
>
> Wisdom had always said that one should leave the manure in a compost heap 
> at
> least a year, and in  order to digest the shavings and chips, maybe three 
> to
> five.  I had a tendency to agree since years ago I got some 25-30 tons of
> sawdust delivered (where the sawmill just wanted a place to dump it) and 
> no new
> sawdust has been added in 12 years.  Some of it still looks like fresh 
> wood and
> what I used as mulch would take about three years to decompose.
>
> None the less, I used the raw stable material directly on the garden beds.
> This is what I found.  Owing, I am guessing, to the presence of nitrogen 
> mixed
> copiously in with the wood shavings, a 10" dressing of raw stable 
> gleanings
> decomposes entirely into black duff in four to six months on the garden 
> soil.
> If it is thicker than that, there is a layer in the middle that stays 
> largely
> decomposed.
>
> So during the (hideously dry) fall and winter, I have put the manure 'in
> situ'  on fallowed beds 20" or more thick.  The bottom, in conact with the 
> soil,
> rots into compost in  a very short time.  Some of the beds are turned 
> during
> the winter and so most of the manure rots.  Those that are not turned will 
> have
> the top 10" or so removed in the spring to use as mulch elsewhere and the
> bottom rotted part mixed in lightly with the soil.
>
> Also during the spring and early summer the corn and potatoes that were in
> rows rather than beds or hills had the alley between rows filled with the 
> raw
> manure some six inches or so thick after the corn and potatoes were hoed 
> and
> hilled for the last time.  It greatly boosted yield and by harvest time 
> you could
> not distinguish any of the manure from the soil.
>
> Another trick I used was that when these in situ piles of manure hosted 
> all
> manner of fungus, I'd take a few forkfuls of the actively decomposing 
> manure
> and innoculate the new beds.
>
> So far my conclusion is that manure from horse barns reeking with urea,
> amonia, and all other forms of nitrogen decomposes far faster than sawdust 
> or wood
> shavings without it.
>
> James
> _______________________________________________
> Homestead list and subscription:
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/homestead
> Change your homestead list member options:
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/options/homestead/lynnw1366%40hotmail.com
> View the archives at:
> https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/homestead