Love it!

Here's our compost heaps in 2008.

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They are now about twice the size even though we use about 500 five gallon buckets of compost each year for vegetable container gardening (and then in the fall add the container compost to my flower beds.)

This is Connie, the queen of compost:
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She's usually good for 2 - 4 five gallon buckets of "black gold" each day in easy to scoop piles. That's only what we harvest in the near back yards. The ones further out on the land are left to fertilize the rest of the 15 acres.

Thanks to our critters, instead of gardening in soil like this
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we now grow our in soil like this
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Hooray for black gold!

Lynda

Ah Ha!!! Now we know one of the secret ingredients in your potions for the gardens!! Lovely!

I've been using UCGs (Used Coffee Grounds) for quite a few years, but my supplier dwindled. This week at work I started talking to the people who supply us with our coffee. They were surprised at how good UCGs are for the gardens and asked if I wanted them on a daily basis since they clean out the machines and just dump them in the garbage wherever they go. Yipee!! I now have a new source which will deliver to me and the UCGs have no filters in them. I may also have a source for free chicken poop - crossing my fingers on that one. :O)

Life is good when we can wallow in lovely amendments for our gardens!! And life is good when Piti's Prairie Smoke germinates at Nicole's humble abode. (Doing the happy dance on that one!!)

poop is good! :)
I had a source for bunny poop and it was great....straight onto the garden....no waiting for it to 'age'
I am now about to ask someone if I can have some of their poop....well they have a farm and have loads of horse, llama, chicken, donkey, emu, pot bellied pig (don't think I would use this one?) and goat 'stuff' :)
yes...poop IS good

I just got manure for the first time this yr, and I have to say , in just a matter of a few weeks, I saw a major differnce in the plants that got treated. I filled my newly made raised beds in the new potager about 1/2 way with aged horse manure, and now have to get more for the rest of my established beds.
By the way, wanted to let you know I LOVE the Lamium you sent me. I am usually not to keen on low tiny ground covers, but these are beautiful. Still waiting on everything else to show its face.Thanks a million.
Tammy

Ah, aren't we strange? Extolling the virtue of manure? :-)
I am happiest wallowing in it each spring. lol

lgslgs, lover your composters. They are gorgeous. I am jealous of your compost piles too. Mine are plastic garbage cans that I drilled holes all around.

tiffy, more UCG? Cool. I might start hauling it from work again. But it is such a pain lugging it up and down the steps at the train stations.
Also, I might look ridiculous hauling it in the new silk outfits that my husband just brought me from Thailand. :-)
I am so glad Prairie Smoke germinated for you. I dumped the left over in 4 different containers. Now I have hundreds of seedlings to repot. :-D

greylady, Yup. Poop is good. You've found a gold mine there. :-)
I was so very happy when someone took me to the stable and showed me where the manure pile was.

Tammy, I am glad you like the Lamium. It's luminous in the shade, right? When the stems lengthen, just pinch them off then stick them in the ground. You'll get a lot more.

I wanna cow!!!!@

For those who don't have access to a stable or farm, Home Depot here carries an aged steer manure blended with well aged wood chips product....about $1 bag. This stuff is long composted, to the point of crumbly with no odor - I top dress beds with it, throw it around plants with my hands. Can't remember the last time I saw need for a commercial fertilizer on anything planted in the ground.

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Horse manure and Compost.. I mix it in the beds...

In my new place, I have to cut down trees and add horse manure and compost in each new bed. The sub soil is really different in parts of the yard, sand, clay, 8 inches of pine humas..

Last year I brought in a couple of tons. I have so much more to do!

Silverkelt

It is beautiful in the shade, it is very luminous. Love it. Cant wait to make more. The touch of pink showing is a bleeding heart bloom.
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I just got a community garden plot - woot! There is a pile of manure on-site, ready to be applied. This will be the first time I've gardened with manure that didn't come in a plastic bag. I'm very happy about that, since all my vehicles have been cars with carpeted trunks, not ideal for hauling poop.

I love manure it's in MY NAME.....

A friend who is an equine vet hooked us into some well aged horse manure which also has aged duck poop in it (yes, the famous Long Ilsand Duck - but there are very few farms left and they smaell to high heaven. Luckily the compost does not)

It is our first time top dressing with manure and the plants look incredibly happy. I am worried about weed seeds in the manure, but hubby said the hot composting kills them. We'll see. In the mean time it is getting worked into the sandy soil as I plant out HOS's.

I laughed when I saw that lamium, as I have spent the past two hours digging up and moving painted fern that "got in its path". It is a wonderful and robust plant, makes it shimmer under trees, but after 5 years of litte care (accept applause for spreading) it was eating the ferns! I now have buckets full of ferns to find homes for tomorrow. Has anyone tried them in large planters?

Nancy

Composted manure lover here ... finally got a pickup load dumped in the yard and I have enjoyed every shovelful I have spread into the beds. I can't wait to see the difference in my gardens this year.

Was at the doctor's office the other day, dutifully answering all her questions and posing many of my own when she exclaimed, "Oh, my goodness, what's that all over the floor?" I looked down, and saw a big mess of it that had come off my shoes ... I didn't want to say "aged horse poop and assorted other amendments," so I just said, "Oh, my goodness, that must have come off my shoes. It's compost." ... she just laughed and said, "Oh, yes, I know what compost is. I think we have a broom somewhere around here. Don't worry about it. We'll sweep it up" ... I cleaned it up with wet paper towels and took every one of them home to put in my yard waste/kitchen scrap compost heap ...

Yeah, manure ... I like it, too.

Barbara in Virginia

Hello, fellow manure lovers. :-)
I am so happy I am not the only one crazy about manure. :-D

"I cleaned it up with wet paper towels and took every one of them home to put in my yard waste/kitchen scrap compost heap ... "
lol. I would have done the same thing, Barbara.
Last week, I took some flowers to work. A tiny earthworm hitchhiked in the stems. I took him home with me. :-)
I used to scoop up horse manure off the downtown street and carried it home on the train. Woot!. Other passengers gave me a wide berth. lol

Just had to chime in about the manure--Love the stuff!! My brother lives next to a horseboarder and my hubbie gets his dump trailer full. We put it over our veggie garden . I also use mulch that is made a local sewer plant!!(It has to be processed to a certiam temp ) Can't use it on veggie gardens because it contains mercury, but my flower beds love it!!!

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I love good poo. Composted with pine shavings.

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Four raised beds topped off.

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Here is a picture of my mulch pile, my manure pile is almost this big!!! I'm such a lucky girl!!

I see I'm not alone. I was thrilled recently to discover a friend had piles of aged horse manure that she was willing to share with me. I don't have a truck, but I do have buckets with lids that cat litter comes in, so I load those up, place them in my car trunk and bring them home. At first my husband was opposed to this, but I gradually convinced him, especially when he learned there was no bad odor and that my happiness depended on it.

I am so happy mixing the manure in my garden soil, adding some to the compost and going around sprinkling some as a top dressing. I credit the manure (and some coffee grounds) with my roses looking their best ever -- they are covered with so many roses and the color of the roses looks more vibrant than they ever did before.

So, back to the original question; yes, I love manure!

Okay, probably a dumb question. Is manure different from compost? I was planning on getting compost this weekend, may be I should get manure, what do you all think?

Manure is best when composted. Meaning, you let it age for a few months until all the odors are gone. Once it's composted, it won't burn your plants. Before composting, it's high in nitrogen. So aged manure is just another form of compost. Both are great for gardens. Last year I was using compost because it was available. My source is gone, so now I have aged manure.

One warning about cow manure - a good friend of mine recently had to have her dog's eye removed - corneal ulcer, viral infection, the vet said the dog picked it up from the manure she was using on her garden. I don't really know what all that means, as people have been using manure on their gardens for a looooong time - without incident - I suspect my friend purchased hers rather than gathering it from a local farm. So, I wouldn't get too crazy over this, but I thought I'd pass a caution along to canine owners.

Actually manures are not that high in nitrogen, not compared to say inorganic fertilizers.. you can apply fresh manure around the beds, horse dries faster IMO than cow, but this will be a debate that lasts the spans of gardeners.

However, fresh manure is high in one thing, salty compounds, this is what is likely to cause burns, leave it a couple inches away from the plant however, if you are going to spread it, Ive found a few weeks in the sun and the horse manure is pretty much ready to go.

This is a MUST READ LINK on manure... from our friends at the univ of Minnesota..

Great link

Manure Management

The horse manure I get varies in age, from days to years, as the place I get it also puts new stuff in front and you cant get the old stuff until the new stuff is moved.. this year, alot of the new stuff was gone, so I got some really composted horse manure..

Silverkelt

"At first my husband was opposed to this, but I gradually convinced him, especially when he learned there was no bad odor and that my happiness depended on it."

Sunshine, youÂre so funny! I feel the same exact way but my DH doesnÂt understandÂ

A friend of mine has chickens so I was going to get some manure for my compost pile. When DH found out I was going to put chicken poop in the compost he said, "DonÂt you dare. I will never be able to eat another veggie from the garden again!" Little does he know, poop has been the secret ingredient in our compost for years. So, I promised him I would not put poop in the compost (wink, wink) and today the poop goes in. He doesnÂt need to know.

I too feel my happiness depends on the poop!

Lisa

It is truly a blight on my family, but I must admit  I am poopless. However, since I have read all your comments extolling the virtue of the mighty poop  I am on a quest. My son has traveling far and wide to obtain leaf mulch and wood chips for my garden. But up until now, he has refused to go on the poop quest, not wanting to contaminate his mighty steed (pick-up) with the black gold. However, I have a friend who owns a great poop machine and I will send my trusting herald (email) to see if she has some seasoned gold to share. If we contained the gold in tapestry sachels (5 gallon buckets), my son might acquiesce. Then my fair kingdom may begin to resemble some of your grand estates. (Can you hear the herald of the trumpets?)

OK, all this gardening has made me a little giddy.

I spread some last year over mulch in a hard clay area. then added some garden soil and then more mulch on top.

this year when I was planting some WS babies I saw worms and much softer soil. I had not seen many worms in prior years. this stuff is great! the soil is much nicer there!

However, I bought the bagged stuff. the horse farms around only had the fresh stuff and I have no where to let it sit and compost. Stupid HOA!!

I have an area by the street that I want to turn into a flower bed. I plan to add cardboard, manure and dirt right on top of the grass. then just let it age and take care of itself till I can plant in it next year. I can't wait!

Karen

I actually have my choice of chicken, cow or horse manure and my neighbor will actually deliver the aged cow manure for me. But the best of the best is the container of worm poop I got from another winter sower at work. I've been using a weak worm poop & seaweed extract tea to bottom water my potted seedlings and plants I grew from seed last year that are breaking dormancy. They seem to like it. I was potting up a lupine sprout today and there was a wee worm in the milk jug of moist potting mix it had grown in. I tucked him into the pot with the seedling so he (or she) can poop on the roots.

For those of you who use fresh manure, don't you get any weeds?
I used fresh horse manure some years ago. I really regret that.
I am still finding dock in my gardens from that manure. But at that time I had no access to aged manure.

Karen, where do you live?
I get manure from the Palatine Park District stable on Dundee/NW HWY.
It posted a huge sign on the fence, "Free Fertilizer Anytime".

I grew up thinking with out manure you had no garden. It was that or compost. To this day like compost in my garden.

pitimpinai, that is a little far from me. However I may be near there and grab some when I can.

I love the stuff in the garden. I may call the horse farm near me and ask if any is aged or older. Maybe I can get some older stuff. They said I can have all I want.

Karen