Using Fresh Manure

There's different opinions out there about using fresh manure in the garden. So I'd like to explore this topic a tad. I can only speak from my own experiences, so I may say things completely opposite of what you've read in some book. I think that the reason behind the differing advice is that there are too many variables to take them all into account with one chunk of gardening instructions. 

Fresh manures vary....

1... Animal species. Certain animal manures have a reputation of being "cold" and thus can be applied without composting or aging. Included in this group would be rabbit, sheep, and goat manure. Other manures are called "hot" and generally get composted or aged prior to using. On my own farm this would include donkey and chicken manure. And then there are omnivore (other than poultry) and carnivore manures, the most recognizable on the farm wood be pig. These last two types are the most controversial, not because they are hot vs cold, but because they carry a stigma. Our culture shies away from such manures. 

     I have often applied rabbit and sheep manure without composting or aging. I'll harvest the manure and use it as is, often immediately. I've never had a problem. But be aware that my animals are primarily grassfed and are not fed excess salt. That very well might have a bearing. 

     I often compost or age donkey and chicken manure. Not so much on purpose because it is "hot", but often because I have more than I need at the particular moment. The donkey manure is large lumps, so by throwing it in with the compost, it softens and breaks the lumps down. Then it's easier to use. The chicken manure is mixed in with the pen litter, which is chopped up grass and weeds. So it's already decomposing right inside the chicken pen. When I scoop up a bucket of pen litter to use, there actually isn't much really fresh chicken manure in it. It's mostly aged to some degree and decomposing already. 

    I prefer to use omnivore and carnivore manure either hot composted or else restricting it to just flower beds. Reason? Intestinal parasites. Hot composting destroys parasite eggs, if the composting is done correctly. But I find it easier to just use these type manures in the flowerbeds where they won't accidently contaminate food. I used to dig these manures into the orchard areas, and since my land doesn't flood, it was a safe enough method. But with a wwoofer now living on my land who tends to pick up and eat fruits that have fallen to the ground, I no longer feel that it is safe manuring the fruit trees that way. 

    I have not seen a problem with any of my manure applications. But then again, I don't use large volumes of it at any one time. I have had better results using frequent small feelings. So again, this is another viable that needs to be taken into consideration. 

2... What the animal is being fed. All my own livestock is grassfed. They get very little grain and no salt supplements. That's contrary to what you'll read in the books. But the system works here in Hawaii. If I were raising horses, I would be using mineral/salt supplements. But I'm not. My donkey isn't a young one needing to grow, nor is she being used for breeding or draft work. As for my sheep - if I were aiming for fast meat gains on the lambs, I would consider grain/salt supplements. Or if I were pressing my ewes to breed as often as possible. But I'm doing neither. My livestock get a tad of salt as a treat now and then. But not a daily onslaught. That's much like how hubby and I are doing it ourselves. We don't consume large amounts of daily salt either. I haven't had a saltshaker in my house for the past 15 years. We get our salt treats from our weekly restaurant outings. 

     When an animal consumes a lot of salt, the excess needs to be excreted. Manure is one outlet. I wonder if the high salt content of the manure is what contributes to the "burning" of the plants since I don't normally see plant burning from my manures, but other people report it from the manures that they use. Could the high salt content be part of the problem? I don't know, but it's something to be explored. 

3... How it is used. Digging or tilling manure into the soil gives different results that applying it on top like a mulch. And using it as a weak liquid fertilizer also gives different results. Applying in large quantity would cause differences as compared to lesser amounts. 

4... The type of soil. When I first started working with my soil, I found that plants really hyper responded to manures, especially fresh manures. They grew robustly. Then the response seem to  change, with the added manure resulting in too much nitrogen. The plants did poorer. But after a couple of years, I again saw a change in the trends. The plants did well with manures, even the  fresh stuff. Could the answer be the soil life, the increased and established soil microbes? I started out with crappy soil. It took a couple of years before the soil started to look and act robustly alive and "healthy". Now my soil is full of life of all kinds.

5... Soil moisture. Soil that dried out seemed to have problems with manures, especially fresh ones. But if I was diligent in keeping the soil moist, never letting more than the top inch or two get really dry, I saw less problems when applying manures. When I switched to keeping mulch atop the soil at all times, I stopped seeing issues with using fresh manures, at least with the way I was using them. Again, I am suspecting this has to do with robust soil life. 

6... Soil temperature. Higher or lower soil temperatures tend to effect not only soil life, but the various chemical reactions going on in the soil. It can effect the availability of nutrients. Here in Hawaii my soil temperature doesn't fluctuate wildly, which again may be part of the reason I don't see many problems with manure applications. 

So you see, there are lots of variables. There are most likely more variables that could be taken into account. I'm no soil scientist, so I just observe and learn as I go. I experiment and watch. 

Weekly Mini Fertilization

Mini fertilization. This is a method I've come to prefer over periodic macro fertilization (applying fertilizer when the growing bed is prepared just prior to planting), or even micro fertilization which implies that small amounts of nutrients are delivered with each watering. My method of mini fertilization is this........

Weekly, or sometimes only every other week, I make up a weak solution of fertilizer of some sort. Sometimes it's diluted urine. Other times it's sheep/donkey manure soaked in water overnight. Other times it's chicken pen litter stirred into a trashcanful of water. This rather weak solution is used to water the plants. Not much. Perhaps a cupful or less to a pineapple or taro plant. Or a light watering over a bed of peas or beets. I don't have any specific formula to give you. Sometimes I make it stronger if the plants act like they could use it, sometimes weaker if they are growing too well. And it depends upon whether or not the plants need irrigation that week. If they need to be watered, I make the fertilizer solution weaker and apply more volume. If the ground is already wet, I use a stronger solution, but less of it. 

One little side note in case you plan to try emulating me. Keep in mind that I also amend my soil with compost prior to planting. Plus I use fresh grass clippings or shredded compost as a mulch, which in turn provides the plants with nutrients. So this mini fertilization system isn't the sole source of plant nutrients. 

Yes, I know people are going to ask, "How much?" Ok, I'll try to give some guidelines for about 100 square foot of garden space.

... Urine. 1/2 gallon per trashcanful of water. 

... Manure. 2 cupfuls per trashcanful water. 

... Chicken pen litter. 1/2 gallon of manure containing litter per trashcanful of water. 

That's only a very rough guideline, because sometimes the plants don't need much fertilizer. Other times they are screaming for more. I have to read the plants to see how much they need. At times I even use much less than this amount. And now that I've said that, there are times that I double the fertilizer to make it stronger. 

I stir the fertilizer into the water. With urine, I can apply it immediately. For manure and pen litter, I stir and let it sit an hour, stir again, then apply. I use a sump pump to hose the water onto the garden area. It's slow, compared to farm irrigation, but it's a pleasant and easy way to pass time in the garden, contemplating the world---or perhaps future gardens. It's also a good time to listen to podcasts or audiobooks. I do a lot of reading and this is one of the ways that I have time to digest another book--while fertilizing the garden. I find the act of watering the garden to be a time of calm and rest. In fact, when I'm bushed from doing other farm work, I'll often go water the garden beds for some relaxation, plus sip a glass of something for rehydration at the same time. Add to this an iPod playing music and I set. 

Urine Revisited

"P" wrote in......."I have a question. I think I’ve seen you mention "fermented urine” perhaps twice in the time I’ve been reading your blog (and I cannot find any mention of it in your index of topics. Is it 

fermented because you simply haven’t had time to use it? Mine sometimes sits in my pee jars 
for 5 days (I have 5 pee jars) but on the 5th day I clean them all (so I have a pot to pee in), so 
some have not “fermented” as long as others. I haven’t noticed any difference in effect, no 
particular burn, so I was wondering if there is some bio/chemical benefit in aging it."

Like you, I haven't noticed any particular benefit from aging (that is, stored urine) or fermenting the urine. Nor have I seen burning, maybe because I tend to apply dilute urine (diluted to stretch out my supply). People who report plant burning......perhaps they are on high salt diets or eat mostly commercial foods? I don't salt my food, nor do I eat a lot of commercially made food. 

I use urine for fertilizer. I have a limited supply (me), but I use every drop I collect. The only urine I don't save for using is when I'm taking drugs that are excreted via the kidneys. That usually means antibiotics, since I don't live on "old people" medications. 

How to collect urine? I use a funnel to direct urine into an old milk jug. Hubby won't do that, but he is willing to pee outdoors onto whichever garden spot I designate. The dogs are directed to "go out" in various garden beds. Like hubby, they're not keen on peeing into a bucket, although I could have trained them to it if I had really wanted to. But having them pee on a garden spot ready for tilling is fine enough. I no longer collect urine from the sheep because it's simply too much hassle. I get plenty of manure that's an easier fertilizer to collect, so I skip the urine. When I had the horse, she was trained to pee into a bucket. She was most cooperative. If fact, insanely cooperative. But the donkey will have no part in this scary silliness, so I don't push it. 

How to use urine :

I can use it fresh or stored (that is, stored for days or a couple weeks). I've seen absolutely no difference between the two so far. If there is a difference, it must be subtle. Perhaps because my soil has abundant microbial life, it makes no observable difference.

I no longer ferment urine because I didn't see a difference in the gardens. I used active sauerkraut juice to inoculate the urine for fermenting, then fermented for 2 weeks before using. The only difference I noted in the fermented urine was that it ended up with a lower pH, which is something I don't need since my soil is already naturally acidic. Fermented urine may have chemical differences compare to fresh, but the results in the garden weren't different. So in keeping things simple, I no longer bother to ferment. 

Do I dilute it? Yes. Do I have a set formula? No. I use about 1/2 cup per gallon of water, thereabouts. Could I use it undiluted? Yes. I could sprinkle it on a garden bed then till it in....much like having hubby and the dogs pee on the garden soil. But I don't pour undiluted urine onto a growing plant. 

How do I use the diluted urine? I use it to water the plants, or add it to compost bins while I making compost. My garden soils have a good amount of microbial life, so I don't get any odor from using the urine. The microbes take care of that very quickly. 

Would fermented urine work better in unimproved soils? Don't know. It would make a nice experiment. 

Talking about experiments.......I read an article in Modern Farmer magazine. Here's the link 

https://modernfarmer.com/2014/01/human-pee-proven-fertilizer-future/

The article brought up some interesting information. Plus it tells how to sanitize urine before use. 

Fertilizer - Repetitive Feeding?

I've fielded several questions about using manures on my gardens. One recurring worry is about being fearful of applying too much nitrogen. Many, many people have sent me dire warnings about using too much fertilizer. 

First of all, let it be known that I don't apply fertilizer in one hefty lump dose. None of that conventional style gardening where the fertilizer is tilled in or broadcast at the beginning of the season, seeds planted, and crops harvested at the end of the season. No. Nor do I apply a thick layer of compost or manure at one time. I have the habit of applying my fertilizers a little bit at a time throughout the growing period. Not a lot at all at once. By the way, my method developed because I had only my own few livestock's manure available. Each day they provided me with a little, which I promptly used. This dribbling allotting of the manure gave me such good results that I kept the habit.

And I'm aware that not all crops can handle constant feeding. Tomatoes are the most well known crop for being nitrogen sensitive. Too much and they produce very few tomatoes. But there are other crops that respond favorably to constant low dose feeding. I find that "greens" do marvelous. 

Back to those dire warnings I've gotten. I'm being warned that heavily fertilized plants are more susceptible to disease and pests. That lush plants will be devastated while non-lush plants will be spared. While this very well may be true for some veggies, or in certain regions, or certain soil types, I haven't found it to be the case in my homestead. On the contrary, the lush plants actually fare better. 

I grow quite a lot of sweet potato greens. Some for human use but mainly for livestock feed. This crop responds  very well to the extra fertilizer feedings. In the above photo, the sweet potatoes are constantly outgrowing the bed and spilling out into the driveway. That's fine with me. Makes for easy harvesting.

Here's another lush, vigorous bed of sweets. This one is growing in semi-shade and growing very well. Without the extra fertilizer feedings, sweets don't grow this thick and lush in the shade. 

Now here's a sad looking bed of sweets not more than 10' from the previous picture. This bed has NOT gotten the extra rabbit manure.....because I ran out. It just got the initial bed preparation with compost & manure. Without the extra feedings, the plants are growing much slower. On top of it, they are also being attacked by flea beetles, causing them to be stunted and sickly. By comparison, the lush bed 10' away has a very low population of flea beetles. The plants quickly outgrow any beetle damage. 

Here's another example of flea beetles causing severe damage to non-vigorously growing plants. I saved this bed by broadcasting a layer of rabbit manure, and two weeks later applying another light layer. The plants filled out, covered the soil, and outgrew the beetle damage. That volunteer pumpkin plant looks terrible due to flea beetles. The extra manure applications resulted in it pushing new growth  that survived the beetles. It's now blooming. 

Taro is another crop that responds favorably to constant low feeding, especially with manures. I will use a my routine compost to prepare the soil initially. Then when the plants are growing well about 2 to 3 months later I will begin applying light manure feedings on a regular basis. The plants quickly become lush. Rather than seeing pests flock to these lush taro plants, I see less pests. I don't know why, it's just what I happen to see going on. 

General greens grow great for me with small frequent feedings. Spinach. Kale. Chard. Broccoli leaves. Etc. These actually seem to survive diseases and pests better. 

Certain crops do NOT do better. The already mentioned tomatoes. Plus root crops which will produce excessive rootlets with too much nitrogen. They also tend to split when they get too much fertilizer. Potatoes tend to produce odd knobs and cracks. 

I'm sure that too much fertilizer is detrimental in some cases. But I'm finding that with SMALL frequent feedings, I'm not having any problems. Actually, my garden does fine. 

Now if I can only get it to stop raining so much this year, my garden would do a whole lot better! 

Using Wood Ashes

Sam K emailed me recently about wood ash. Since I'm running a woodstove, he wanted to know what I do with the ashes. 

First let me say, every location, soil, and growing situation is different. What I do may have absolutely no bearing on what you should do. What is beneficial to my garden may not be good, and may actually harm yours. Thus....you have been warned.            Gosh darn, I'm down to using disclaimers! Just keep in mind that this blog is just relating my adventures of creating my homestead. It's not a how-to instructional book. Heck, if it were a book, I could be selling it.   ;) 

Ok, what do I do with ash. First, I run two different types of woodstoves. The one for cooking livestock feed is a TLUD (top loading updraft) stove that's primary purpose is to produce biochar. The heat is a by-product that I use to cook with. This type of stove makes very little ash, since the combustion process is limited and actually halted at the point that pyrolysis dramatically slows down. 

My ash producing stove is the conventional woodstove in the house. It is a Morso stove, though the brand name has no bearing on this matter. Commercial, conventional wood burners all produce ash. The Morso makes the collection of the ash easy because it has an ash pan under the burn chamber. I run this stove briefly just about every morning and night. So each week I get two to three pans of ash. 

The ash I collect comes from burning tree woods, mostly ohia, eucalyptus, and guava. These are the most common trees in my immediate area. A few other species are mixed in, when available. These include Christmasberry, mango, loquat, macadamia, citrus, ironwood, and Norfolk pine. 

My number one use of ash is for adjusting soil pH and increasing potassium in my pasture soils. My soil tends to get somewhat acidic due to the fact that I am downwind from an actively erupting volcano. Our rains are acidic. The volcanic soil is calcium deficient, which doesn't help with having acidic rain. 

Before applying ash, I check the soil pH. If it is 6.5 or higher, I won't apply ash. But it's always been lower since I started testing several years ago. Therefore I am comfortable with applying the ash. Oh, I test potassium too, and it has been testing low on untreated areas. 

I hand spread the ash just before a rain. In the above photo I've just spread the first pan of ash. I next applied the second pan, filling in the spots that I missed or only got a light covering. That night it rained. Good. 

I also use small amounts of wood ash in my vegetable gardens. The coral sand that I apply to garden soils only slowly adjusts the pH. When pH gets too low, I will use wood ash to more quickly bring the pH up to a veggie friendly level. Ash also adds potassium and essential plant minerals at the same time. 

Have I seen a difference when I use wood ash? In my pastures, yes. There is a significant visual improvement. The grasses grow faster, send out more runners, are greener looking. There is less moss and less ferns. I don't know all the science behind it, but the grasses and pasture herbs seem to respond in a positive fashion to a wood ash application.

In the veggie gardens there is not as a dramatic visual change. Most likely that's because of all the other soil amendments also being used at the same time.....manures, compost, mulch, coral sand, burnt bone, biochar, urine, various nutrient teas. The garden soil has been improved as I go along, so one application of one particular amendment (such as wood ash) doesn't result in a significant change. Plus I'm not using lots and lots of ash in the garden soils. Just a bit whenever it is called for. 

 Do I use ash for other purposes? No. I know that wood ashes have other uses, but I haven't tried any of them. Since I have acres of pasture that need improving, I have years of use for my wood ash that I will be generating. No need to look around for other things to use it for. 

Iron/urine Chelate

What's this chelation thing that I'm doing with urine? And why? The "why" part is that I'm adding plant nutrients to the soil that otherwise wouldn't be there. For example : adding rusty nails doesn't provide plant available iron. Adding plain urine, while adding immediate nitrogen, doesn't supply slow release nitrogen. 

The "what" part is that I'm doing is creating a chemical reaction between a metal (rusted iron) and an acidic solution (urine) where the nitrogen in the urine bonds with the metal. The chelate compound thus formed is slightly soluble, therefore the nitrogen doesn't simply go off into the air or get leached out with the rain. That's good, because nitrogen is typically rapidly lost from soils. Plus the iron itself is a plant nutrient. In chelated form, it's available to plants. Otherwise it is insoluble and will just sit there in the soil unused, unavailable. I'm no chemist, so I don't know exactly what is going on with this chelation process, at a chemical level. I've talked to several chemists over the years and they've tried to explain it to me. Much of their in depth discussion flies way over my head, so I just take their word on it. Combining urine and rusted iron = a solution of iron that is available to plants + nitrogen that is also available to plants but doesn't rapidly disappear. 

I am aware that most iron in the soil is not bio-available. The plants cannot use it. The micro organisms cannot utilize it. I have seen gardeners poke old nails into their soil, but from what I've been told, it won't help the plants any. But if you take those rusty old nails and soak them in acid, then there is a chemical reaction. The iron gets converted into a compound that plants can eventually use. 

(Old nails that have been rusting out in the rain.)

Since soaking old rusty nails in urine creates better plant nutrients, that is what I'll do. And experience seems to confirm that it works. The garden rows where I sprayed iron/urine chelate as a foliar spray, the plants were visually darker green and more lush appearing. I now use the chelate mix as a soil or compost additive rather than a foliar spray. Foliar sprays are more difficult for me to work with, so I put my effort into creating good soil instead. Some day, when I'm bored, I'll experiment in greater detail with foliar sprays. 

So, how exactly is urine chelation done? Well, I'm kind of lazy about it. I just put a bunch of old rusted nails into a milk jug or other plastic jug. Most of my jugs I keep 1/4 filled with nails, adding more when needed.

 Then I fill up the jug with urine, screw the cap shut.

Now I just let it sit there until I need the urine to add to compost. That means anywhere from several weeks to a couple months. Every once in a while I'll give the jugs a shake to stir things up. I've been told that doing the process this way takes weeks to work. Setting the jugs in the warm sun makes the process go faster. But be aware that sun degrades the plastic that milk jugs are made out of. If you plan on setting the jug in the sun for weeks, perhaps a heavier duty plastic container would be wise. Either way of doing it is ok by me. I'm in no rush. But if you needed the process faster yet, you would soak the metal in HCl  (swimming pool acid) overnight then add the solution and any leftover metal to the urine. Either way, the urine solution gets cloudy and a layer will settle to the bottom. I shake the jug before pouring off the chelated urine for using it. Any nails not dissolved get used for the next batch. 

If you don't have old nails, you could use any kind of scrap iron. In the past I've used bits of leftover angle iron and also rebar scraps. It just has to be able to fit into a jug of some sort. I guess you could use a 5 gallon bucket with a lid, but so far I've been doing ok using jugs. 

Using Wood Ash

left: pure ohia ash                  right: 50% ash & 50% bone

Wood ash is a valuable item, in my opinion. I use it for the garden on a regular basis. And since I use wood to heat my house and cook food, I create my own and can control what sort of wood makes the ash. Very importantly, I can prevent trash, plastics, and other nasties from contaminating the ash. 

Ash has a rapid liming effect. It raises the soil pH. Since I have to deal with acidic rain due to being downwind from an active volcano, I find that this liming effect is very beneficial. Ash also provides potassium, a plant nutrient. And there is small amounts of various trace minerals.

When my ash is created, I also add bone to the woodstove. The heat from the embers bakes the bone, making it fairly easy to crumble by hand or crush with a hammer when it is cool. Thus I am able to add bone to the ash, adding calcium and phosphorous, both needed plant nutrients. Beside bone, I also bake coral. Once cool, I crush it with a hammer. This adds more much needed calcium to the ash. Soils here are extremely deficient in calcium.

To use the ash, I normally add it to my compost, lightly dusting the various layers as the pile is being created.  In this way, ash is gradually but constantly being added to the garden soil. I rototill or dig in compost with each new crop.

I regularly check the pH of the soil prior to adding the compost. This lets me know if a little more ash should be dusted on. So far I've never had to withhold the ash, not even with potatoes. But I take care not  to add extra ash to areas that I plan to plant potatoes next. I know that the books say no ash with potatoes, but I don't have a problem with it so far. I guess that is because of the active volcano. And poosibly because I rototill in extra mulch to keep the soil easier to dig at harvest time. The extra mulch tends to bind up the excess nitrogen from the compost as the mulch rots down. Plus it also helps to keep the soil evenly moist, something that potatoes really do well  with. I always check the pH before doing the ash thing.

I don't have any special formula for how much ash. As I said, I lightly dust the layers of a growing compost pile.

Utilizing Urine

Most peoples' first response to the idea of using urine is "yuck"! Even my own husband considers urine to be some sort of toxic waste to be flushed out of sight as quickly as possible. But a normal person's urine is sterile and in fact is a good ingredient for fertilizer.

Here on my homestead I collect urine to use in compost. And since I check the compost piles every day, urine never its around for long before it ends up in compost. So storage is not a problem.

Urine is collected in a bucket of biochar. I use a five gallon plastic bucket that is easy to sit a toilet seat on. Guys don't need it, but it sure makes it more comfortable for gals! Biochar fills the bucket 1/4 to 1/2 full. Then we simply use the bucket for #1 (that is, to urinate). Each day when I go past the compost piles and check their temperatures, I'll empty the bucket, mixing the biochar & urine into the center of one of the piles. The temperature of the piles runs between 165 to 180 degrees, depending upon the stage of composting and the components.

One of the nice things about using the biochar is that there is no odor, no fly problem. Zero.

Now I'm sure there is some government office somewhere that doesn't approve of using natural fertilizer, but I don't believe this method poses any public danger. There is no odor, no flies, nothing sitting around for days, and the urine gets processed in a hot, biologically active compost pile. It's more sanitary than the thousands of animals peeing in the fields very day around here.

My husband and I are not taking any medications that would be eliminated via the urine. But that is something to keep in mind. Personally, I wouldn't want to be adding medical chemicals to my compost piles.

While composting works just fine without using urine, this method is just one more little step of utilizing what is available in my quest to be self-reliant. Why waste something that is so readily available?

My neighbors have other uses for urine. The common use is as a pig deterrent. Feral pigs are attracted to your pineapples, bananas, macnuts and taro. And of course they will raid your garden if they can. Most gardens and orchards are fenced, but banana trees are often scattered about unprotected. If pigs are suddenly a temporary problem, my neighbors will splash urine on the base of the trees. And they will take their dogs, if they have them, to urinate there too. This tactic has saved many a banana patch until a pig hunter has a chance to come set up a trap.