Who am I kidding.. no one reads this. Which is probably a good thing. That won't stop me from delivering the goods, which in this case happens to be crap.
Q. What is brown and rhymes with Snoop? (answer to this pressing joke at the end of the post)
Poop, or manure for you finicky types, happens to be an excellent source of fertilizer for the garden. And as it turns out there is a hierarchy in the usability and effectiveness of all different types of poo. Top of this pile is the illustrious chicken poo; bottom of the barrel would be the humans. In terms of poop value, Homo sapiens are at the bottom of the pyramid for once.
Now, while chicken crap is black gold, it tends to be really HOT, meaning it will burn your plants if you put it directly on plants or near their roots. It should be fully composted or used underneath a layer of dirt when you are transplanting. Further on down the line is horse manure. It is pretty good manure, because it will not burn your plants, and you can directly apply it- but this is where it gets its bad wrap. Horse manure apparently contains weed seeds. A lot of them. So the recommended method of using horse manure is by thoroughly composting it.
And the BEST thing that horse manure has going for it, is that you can get it fo' free, which is what my housemate Vanessa and I did about 2 weeks ago. Call up your local stables and set up a time when you can come and scoop turd. Vanessa and I already cased a spot and were able to drive right up. We brought a shovel and a trash can with us. Scooped the poo into the can, loaded it into my subie and zoomed home with the windows down scoring some major hillbilly points. We did no research of proper use of manure on garden beds and accidentally did some things right and a lot of things wrong. Such as directly applying the poo to the dirt. Luckily we had the accidental foresight to put newspaper between the poo and the dirt, so it has been pseudo breaking-down, and hopefully will not be delivering us into a weed disaster zone. We then covered this entire mulch cake with straw.
Now straw is expensive. Hay is typically cheaper, but is also usually filled with weed seeds (Devil seeds I like to call them). So, what is the solution for a po' hillbilly like me? Well, I was able to go to the local farm stores (any place that sells straw will do) and sweep up the straw that fell out of the bales that people who have more money and less shame, bought. Usually you have to bring your own bags for this maneuver- and I suggest bringing the biggest toughest garbage bag you can find.
Poop, newspaper, and straw are all really good things for the organic garden. They are all readily available for free.
Now for the answer to the joke.....
A. Dr. Dre!
I hope this helped someone out there... I promise to take picture for the next post.. I think the appropriate follow-up to a post about poop should involve food.. we'll see
