Hi everyone.

What do you folks do for compost in your garden?

Typically, I spread the barn goop on the garden in the fall and then let it leach into the soil over the winter (um...we have a lot of rain here). Then, depending on my energy level, in spring I either remove the straw bedding and dig up the dirt that's under it or else till both the straw and poop into the beds. MMMMMM......

Now, though, I have flower beds, and I'm wondering if I want to put stinky sheep poop and stuff on them.

What do you folks do for composting? What might you be doing for your flower beds.

Worms???

With apologies to EM who is under 45 feet of snow, I hear 8-)

-- Anonymous, February 24, 2004

Answers

...or maybe that's 4 or 5 feet of snow!

-- Anonymous, February 24, 2004

Well I set my scraps out to compost and in the morning they're always gone?? Most every spring I just buy a load of chicken poop...

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2004

Sheepish...we spread goat/horse shit (can I say that here?) on our garden in the fall also. Usually this is stuff that's been sitting and composting all summer...with some fresh shit thrown in. I do the same for my perennial flowers and the few herb beds I have. I pile it on top of my peonies, too...and everything comes right up through it in the spring.

I never have anything coming out of my kitchen to compost. My chickens and pigs get EVERYTHING out of the kitchen (except for bones) no matter what "color" the stuff is :-)!!! It always amazes me when I see what they'll actually eat! Right now my chickens are feasting on shrimp heads and shells. We've been buying whole shrimp around here lately for as low as 35¢ per pound and freezing them. Pain in the rear to clean them, though!!

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2004

Between the dogs, cats and chickens, there is nothing left to compost except the manure, which there is plenty of, but we spread most all of it on the hayfields and pastures. Well rotted manure goes on the gardens and flowerbeds, I don't use commercial fertilizers anywhere.

The daffs and tulips are up a few inches and it is to be 60 by this weekend, sorry EM, hope you can see the ground soon!

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2004

Thanks. Hmm. I guess I'm kind of tripping over the "well-rotted" part of the manure preparation. I don't think I just want to dump my barn gleanings in the front yard....they smell a little (shall we say) "barnyard-esque". However, I have so much material that composting seems too small-scale a process. I certainly don't want to go out and buy compost material, though.

Any other thoughts? (Don't grow flowers?!!!)

-- Anonymous, February 26, 2004

Oh yeah, our chickens and ducks get almost all our kitchen waste. We don't toss meat out for them, of course, but everything else either gets eaten or scratched right back into the ground. We are also feeding them spent grain from a local microbrewery. The ducks especially like the grain. (Personally, I like the beer....)

-- Anonymous, February 26, 2004

you know what my answer is :>)

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2004

Well as you know, I don't have any animals or their manure anymore, so I compost all that stuff I used to feed the critters in two backyard compost bins. I just put it on the flower gardens and some in my potted plants and earthboxes.

When I had all that manure, we cleaned barns every spring and composted it till next spring when we spread it on the gardens.

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2004

I like when other people come to get some of my manure. My husband had some friends getting it from one place but I told them to take it from another. They asked if it was better but I said "No, I just need it moved from here" (At the time, I thought the ATV with a plow blade would move it....HA!)

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2004

Hey Jay,

Does vermicomposting work on a larger scale? Can I get a 5-million gallon bucket and put it under my sink? (tee hee). Actuallly, does composting with red worms work on a large scale? Like a 16-yard truck-full of barn refuse? I'd be curious to find out. thx

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2004

I have seen continuous feed units that were 40 feet long, 8 ft wide and 8 ft tall. The key is to keep it aerated and in the 65 to 90 degree range. Instead of converting a trailer, you could vermicompost it in a heated barn on the floor.

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2004

Wow!! That's alot of "squiggly" worms :-)!!!

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2004

I was out turning over parts of the veg. garden yesterday, and I couldn't turn a clod without tons of worms! My chickens were on the other side of the fence going nuts watching me. Talk about squigglers (both worms and chickens!).

-- Anonymous, March 01, 2004