But you're a gardener yourself, you'll have plenty of use for the muck.I said. Yes I use it on my garden, but there's far more than I can use - come and help yourself, she replied. Needless to say, I didn't need asking twice.
This morning we went round to her house with as many compost bags as I could lay my hands on, and a spade. She lent us a wheelbarrow and while I filled bags, Ian ferried them to the car. With two car loads, we fetched twenty four bags of horse poo, in various stages of decomposition.
Bags of poo.
And just in case you want to see what poo looks like close up...
Poo.
I have poo! I am one very happy gardener.
Now I just need to find out whether it's OK to use it fresh. I know well-rotted is ideal, but would it matter if I put it in the potato trenches as it is?
My horse had a very brave poo onto some of my mum's flowers. They grew to be the biggest, most fabulous flowers in the garden.
ReplyDeleteFresh worked very well for flowers :D
I got a nice fellow from a local horse ranch to deliver a whole truck load here last year! I've still got about half of it, which is nicely aged by now!
ReplyDeleteI generally get horse poo every year and depending on the source it can be in various different stages of decay. So I've done some reading on the topic. Basically there are 2 issues.
Issue number one is the safety/bacteria issue. Apparently fresh poo can contain some nasty stuff that you wouldn't want to accidentally ingest, so they suggest keeping it away from root crops or anything that grows near to the ground like spinach.
The other issue is that it can have a very high nitrogen content because of the urine that's mixed in with it. So some people were cautioning against putting it anywhere that it might touch the plant leaves because it could burn them. I used some very fresh stuff right next to the leaves though and didn't have any problems.
Happy Poo!!!
I'd wait until half rotted to be on the safe side - it's still good at moisture retention then (not that you probably need it in Wales!) so is good dug under the surface or in trenches. Lucky you!
ReplyDeleteOoo you were very lucky! When I had my little plot I found someone offering horse poop on freecycle but only ended up with a tiny amount thanks to bad weather and a helper who was just 12 at the time!
ReplyDeleteA gardeners dream come true! Looks like you struck brown gold. :)
ReplyDelete