Maybe this will help with the chicken poop. It is a summary of how to use Lacto bacilli to get the chicken poop deomposing in the chicken house, help eliminate some odor, and help your chickens' health. This is summarized from the Gil Carandong paper on the link above, with an alteration. 1. Get or make some plain yogurt--doesn't matter whether it is fat free or full fat or inbetween. Make sure it has live cultures. (Dannon and Stoneyfield do). NO flavors. (This is the alternative to gathering LB from the air..) 2. Put a sieve over a bowl and line the sieve with a coffee filter. 3. Pour yogurt into sieve and let the whey drain out. Depending on how long you let it drain, you will end up with more whey/stiffer "yo-cheese" product (which you can eat or feed to chickens) or less whey/firmer yogurt product that resembles Greek yogurt. Eat it yourself of feed to the chickens (and goats) if you don't like yogurt. (If you use a quart of yogurt and let it drain a couple of days in the fridge you will end up with close to 2 cups of whey.) 2. Two options with the whey. Store the pure whey in the fridge or mix 1:1 with unsulphured molasses to keep at room temp without it going anerobic. 3. If using pure whey, mix 1.2t per 2 gallons unchlorinated water (like in a typical 2 gal pump sprayer). If using the molasses/whey mix, mix 2.4 (2.5 for ease) in two gal sprayer. Spray the chicken house floor...how often? I would do as much as possible at first to really get the LB bacteria working in there. You can also use this same mixture for the chickens' water. It will be like natural antibiotic, good for their digestion according to the paper. It is supposed to be particularly effective against Salmonella and E coli. Refer back to that Janong article to look how they are HANDLING the chicken litter from the house. They also use it in piggerys to eliminate odor. As for the pile of straw... a. Perhaps you can screen it off with some split bamboo fencing (not too pricey) or another alternative...free wooden pallets? http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/sawyer69.html or, if you need taller, this one: http://summerville-novascotia.com/PalletWoodShed/ But, if you add the right stuff to the straw pile (as mentioned above) you will have some incredible compost...and the straw pile will continually be shrinking.. Thank you Luckygal and RJ over on the other thread for coming up with the "one step" method of dealing with the LB... Here is a link that might be useful: split bamboo fence

I've see alfalfa pellets used around the State Capitol building and the surrounding parks. The roses are beautiful. I think there are beneficial fungus in those pellets that help fight the bad fungal diseases. And yes, the water from the pond or aquarium filters are good for your plants. The same with the bloody water from rinsing the meat, or from cleaning fishes, you use them immediately to water your plants. Of course, spread them around the yard to diffuse the smell.

Newbie in nj, Many cannas do quite well in containers. My intentions were directed to those who live in areas that generally do not have to lift and winter store. Pot growing simply requires more attention and care and the plant can become root bound. The taller varieties often get blown over and some find the need to anchor their pots. Our large flowered cannas (garden hybrids) usually do not attract humming birds etc as well as the smaller flowered varieties. Some of the recent post listed ÂRobert Kemp (canna compacta) as being a good choice for both the flower and bird attractant. The larger flowered dwarf cultivars are excellent choices for containers simply because they tend to grow much shorter and bloom somewhat sooner. Relative speaking of course! The ÂFuturity Series of dwarf cannas are a group of shorter growing cultivars that would be ok in pot culture. There are a number of others. I definitely disagree with the "crowded" reference. I think maybe there was a communication misunderstanding. Overcrowding in containers or in beds is not a good situation for the plants. Just for the sake of discussion; dwarf varieties need roughly two to three feet between plants; the really tall varieties may require three to four feet between individual plants growing with plenty of sun. These suggestions are simply rough guidelines and can be adjusted to your situation. Containers can be started side by side and adjusted as the plant matures. This is not a good option for plants in established beds! By the way, Old House Gardens called me not long ago and they attempt to give good information and provide some interesting historic canna info. Regards, Kent

Oddly, the pseudo "science" behind the silly, unscientific, proven wrong-headed and actually caught red handed falsifying facts about CO2 "polution" is also a factor in the "It's abundant all around" fable. No, it is not "Abundant" in any way. In fact, earth is at a very low, biologically-unsustainable CO2 atmosphere level, so if man is capable of pushing this vital nutrient even lower, our plants will vanish, oceans will tun to cesspools with dead plankton and other microbial plants and, well, we will die by the billions, along with all other plant-dependent life forms. The key is Balance. The hydrogen in woody material is what makes it "woody." it is "dense" relative to non woody plant material. If that is some form of insignificant factor to you, may I suggest that this discussion about the natural life cycle of nutrients in our biosphere is out of your interest and care range? In fact, these elements are all vital in "Balance" to each other, and the "dense" part is a relative term, as my inclusion of it clearly states. Thanks for your sharing, all of you. I have no further interest in this messed up delusion about composting. Bye.