Sunday, April 6, 2008

My OM (organic matter) Troubles

I was desperate this year for a big load of horse manure for my veggie garden.  I transported a few bags across the state line (is that legal?) from my parents' place in Pennsylvania but it wasn't nearly enough.  So yesterday I came up with a brilliant plan.  A teenage boy down the street has a beat up pick up truck and a brother who worked at a horse farm.  I offered to pay him $50 to bring me a pick up load of horse manure.  He was more than willing and I explained to him in detail about how it needed to be well decomposed, old poop.  

The load of manure came in the afternoon.  It was straight out of the horses' behind fresh.  Sigh.  Now, I live on a small plot in the middle of the village.  What am I going to do with a big big pile of poo?  I considered tilling it in and hope that in the month I have before plants need to go in it would decompose enough that it wouldn't burn my seedlings.  But am I willing to take the chance?  In the middle of last night I finally decided that I couldn't take that chance and spent the morning raking it off the garden.  I made a low pile all around the perimeter of the garden.  This fall I'll rake it back on.

The moral of this story is that you should never trust a teenager to know the difference between old poop and new poop.  So now I have a whole lot of fresh horse manure that I can't use this season and I have a big pile of compost that I can't use on the vegetable garden at all.  Someone, not us, threw their dirty cat litter in it.  Wonderful.  I will use it on the flower beds this fall, it won't go to waste.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

LOL! Ah, if only the young 'uns would appreciate the finer points of aged manure. *grin*

I just read your comment over on Garden Rant. And based on the posts I have read, I'd say that I would definitely like to be your blog friend... but you'll have to understand that I know more about gardening with a large dog than about gardening with small children. She does tend to plow things over and eats my tomatoes and beans, though--can that count?

(One other blog you might like is Colleen's at In the Garden Online. She's slowing down a bit now, between an imminent birth and a new fulltime job writing for about.com, but she's got two little girls already and one has been growing some of her own things this year.

Unknown said...

Oops. Add /serendipity to the link I provide for Colleen's blog, or just click "Journal" at the top right of that main page. Forgot about that.

Patti Major said...

Well, it is very nice to meet you! Large dogs definitely count. I'm still trying to teach mine to not take short cuts through the flower beds. The kids learn that a little quicker.

I'll check out that blog. Thanks, and thank you also for commenting on mine!

JumpinJude said...

Who threw cat poop on your compost pile? Maybe you need a little sign, "Keep your poop to yourself - unless it's nice, old horse poop!"