When I left to head to town today, I passed the tree trimmers working on my road. With a bit of boldness, I stopped and asked if they needed a place to dump their chippings of the day. "Yes"....what a beautiful sounding answer. So I gave them directions, headed off to town and hoped for the best.
Didn't get back home until after 5 and I had completely forgotten about the chippings. So it was a pleasant suprise to find two truckloads of ready to use mulch sitting outside the rockwall. Wow, I'm not usually this lucky. In the past everytime I offered a spot for dumping chippings, I was always told that they already had a place lined up. So finally I've won my turn at them.
Tree trimming chipping make a marvelous mulch. Oh, there's some rather long stuff mixed in, but as a mulch it doesn't matter. I plan to use this on the veggie gardens. I bet I'll use every drop, every chip.
I've been reading your posts about compost and mulch. They've been very interesting. We have 3 horses that generate a lot of poop. What would you do with that? Would you spread it around or let it decompose more? My husband wants to spread it on our riding arena but I want to put it where our garden is going to go. Flies are a problem here.
ReplyDeleteThat's a lot of manure. Three horses can generate quite a bit. I prefer to compost horse manure when I have excess. The only crops I grow that handle fresh horse manure ok are taro and yacon. Everything else does better if the manure pile has heated up at least once before the manure is used. Oh, I've had people say that they just add horse manure to the garden without doing anything, but then I learn that they got the manure from a stable where the manure has been sitting for several months. So the manure isn't fresh afterall. A stable manure pile can get pretty hot inside it.
DeleteFor garden use, I'd opt to let the manure heat up and compost some. Flies can be a real problem in some areas. And that pile could be a breeding grounds for flies. Tarping the pile, or even covering in old sheets will help reduce the fly activity but still plenty of flies will crawl past that barrier. I think I've read in horse magazines about a biological control for stable flies....possibly a nematode or something? Or you could put fly bait in the bottom of a five gallon bucket along with a few fresh manure balls and set it beside the manure pile. It surely won't catch all the flies, but it will get some. The more buckets, the more dead flies. 20 years ago flypaper and fly bait were my battle tools against flies. I don't know what is available now that would be better.
Putting the manure in the arena is a time honored method. In a dry area, the manure doesn't breed flies, it breaks down, but it gets really dusty. I was never happy with the thought of breathing that dust in. When I moved away from NJ, my chronic lung congestion disappeared. Was it aggravated or possibly caused by breathing in manure dust every week when I participated in calf cutting contests? I breathed a lot of that arena dust in. ......just something to take into consideration.
Hmmmmm, I never thought of that (manure dust). I have Valley Fever under control through drugs. Even so, I don't need any more things to bother my lungs. I sent off a dirt sample to Ohio for analysis. In a kitchen table sediment test I find 50% sand and 25% silt and 25% clay. Hardpan layer makes it not drain around here. I was thinking to start real garden efforts next fall after I got the soil ready. We're getting a small back hoe tomorrow and I will get my husband to turn the manure pile. Do you think watering it and putting in alfalfa leavings will make it decompose so I can use it this fall? I'm trying not to spend $$. Oh we use fly predators (little wasps that eat fly larvae).
DeleteWater for sure. Simply adding some moisture when you turn the pile will cause it to heat up again. Will it be ready by fall? That should be no problem at all. And the alfalfa leaves would a good addition, just making it all that better for using in your new garden.
DeleteYou really have the "on the ground" experience so I appreciate your feedback. Thanks!
DeleteNice one.
ReplyDeleteCoincidently enough I just got a truckload of tree mulch too.
I usually just keep it very moist, add some blood and bone, and urine.
After at least 6 months it reduces greatly in volume and so is much easier to spread.
Sounds good! The tre trimmers dropped off two more truckloads before moving out of my area. So I have plenty of excess that I need to store. At the moment I don't have any extra urine or blood, but I do have manure. So I plan to micpx in manure as I move the excess to a storage spot. Over the next few months I will keep it moist using water inoculated with urine and compost tea. As you pointed out, in 6 months things should be looking good!
DeleteThat's all good.
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