Don't know what a slug bug is, but horse manure is good stuff.
If it has bedding material in it, consider it a stand alone compost composite.
In my experience, horse manure with bedding usually needs a bit more water.....

Slug bug = vw beetle. (An old car)

I don't know if it has bedding in it but I would assume so. It looks like someone took a tractor to the stalls in the barn and just shoved a couple years of build up into the pasture.

Going to need to rent a tractor to move it and gain access to the barn... :/

Never heard of such a thing. Some might need more composing than others, but never useless.

Well, looks like I'm not getting my chipper. Guy texted me today to reschedule for tomorrow, shortly after, he deleted his CL ad, and since then has refused to answer or return my calls and texts....go figure

Opinions on composting indoors? I stopped composing new kitchen scraps when the path to the garden snowed in, but I've got an excess of deep bedding in the barn that I'm tempted to start a pile in a spare stall with.

Next year deep bedding gets cleaned out in the fall so it doesn't get this deep in winter.

Know the feeling.

Ah, well..... there will be a better one come along.:bored:



Diskid.....I have heaped up stall cleanings inside, out of the way, for winter. Doesn't hurt a thing if you've got the space, and on those really cold nights, the critters will pile around the heap for the heat.
A little extra straw layered next to the pile just for the critters, and they'll be remembering you on your birthday....

Forerunner... You said horse manure may need water... I'm in the PAC nw.... We are currently flooding. How much water could it need? I was out by it, didn't smell anything or notice any detectable heat... But it was also POURING rain (and thinking about it didn't notice any steam either) also from the looks of the rest of the property I'm going to guess they've been sitting there a good long while. Don't know for sure yet if we are going to pick up the property, but if we do, what do I do to get them a goin? They are certainly wet at thus point, and I will have to move them so they will inevitably get stirred. Anything else?

I was referring to stuff coming right out of the stall.

It's usually a little dry, cuz most horse owners are fussy that way.

Sounds like your piles have plenty moisture.

The same rule applies....moist but not wet.
Steam is your best indication that moisture is adequate AND not in excess......until, of course, the pile has finished working.

Well the piles most definitely still look like poo. Will have to see if I get the opportunity to move them and see what happens

When you do move them check for moisture, mix it all up and put in one LARGE pile

Forerunner that is awesome! I didn't see this post until it was mentioned on a separate thread. I thought I was the only crazy person filling my truck with organic material at the cities brush dumping ground. I found out they had piles of wood chips for free 12 years ago and have been hauling them back to my place since, although I think you beat me on size of operation. There is one city in my area that gives away free compost from the city slickers tree leaves and grass trimmings. I have hauled back three truck loads this week. Its gold

I pile all I want to drag home on a 16 foot trailer and haul it 25 miles home. It's cheaper and less time consuming than I can do it for. Right now I've got 8 loads out of this batch. The rows I get it from are 100 long and usually about 20 rows 5 foot high. They do 2 batches a year. I get wood chips there also.

Welcome aboard, JL. :)


We were wondering when you'd jump over here with the folks who take their compost seriously.


My eldest and I have been hauling steadily from the local sale barn.
Most years, by this time, the material and hauling conditions are kinda nasty, for the excess moisture and freeze/thaw cycles.
This year, the weather, and the uncharacteristically higher carbon content of the material are making for some better piles and gentler hauling conditions.

We've got three small mountains slowly building..... all piled right on top of where they will be spread...... the intense green and markedly more robust growth of the grass and clover where the last mountains were built (not spread....BUILT) serving as a constant reminder of the wisdom of that practice.

Drove past our county recycling place yesterday, they have several very large piles of chippings out in the yard. I have been working on a 16 foot trailer lately, new floor, wiring, etc. By tomorrow I should have it done, including side walls, meaning.g I will be making some trips to the recycling yard.

More chipths !!!


:grin:




They dropped me off another load yesterday.

Get 'em while they're hot.......

Hope you extremists don't mind a slightly off topic question.

We recently got some chicks (31). Along with the chicks some fine wood chips for bedding. Now we have a small bit of manure & chips. My question is can I use those along with some water and or pee to make a manure type compost tea for the seedlings I am going to be starting soon? What else if anything needs to be added? I have also been saving all my wood stove ashes and keeping them dry.

I hope to find somewhere to get manure this spring to start making compost in earnest. If I can ever get my road to dry enough to get my stake body truck down it. I have all the wood chips needed as there is a tree service lot where they dump chips less than two miles from me. They said I can have all I can handle.

Thanks in advance for any help you may be able to give.

Larry

I wouldn't think that is enough manure to be a nitrogen burn issue, you kept enough bedding in there too keep the animals clean? I'd use it as mulch between the rows and let mother nature do the tea making when it rains if I didn't have room to rot it down properly first. If I did have room I'd rot it down first, get the wood to absorb that nitrogen and turn it into slow release fertilizer.

Thank you for your reply. Yes they have plenty of bedding. I am getting ready to start several flats of tomatoes, peppers and such. So I am looking for a liquid to use when watering. Unless you think I should just mix it in the medium. I have always used 10-10-10 or miracle grow. Going to try and grow all natural from now on. That's why I ask.

Thanks
Larry

If you have room start a pile and use fertilizer one more year. Then use the rotted stuff as your growing medium next year.

Just be sure that tea is really light colored, at first, and get a feel for what the seedlings want.

Water from the bottom, while you're at it.
If you splash manure tea, even water....on the uppers of seedlings, they can get all kinds of miserable looking and die.

I keep my seedling trays in a waterproof tray and water from the bottom tray, allowing the liquid to gently surround the roots without touching the above-ground plant portions.

WEAK tea, to start. :)

I have started bringing home the coffee grounds from work. Nothing extreme, a couple of 5 gallon buckets a day. They had previously been spoken for but that person no longer wants them.

Have you got any sort of worm farm going on, Cascade ?

Just the ones that crawl into the piles.

You're in good company. :)

Thanks everyone!

Diskidmore

This is a brand new garden space in fact I'm still cleaning it up. It was timberland last year. So I would rather not use chemicals. I have about 3-4 medium size loads of manure from a friend to bring in and work into the soil. Right now everything is waiting on drier weather as my road is 4 wheel drive only at the moment. My hauling truck is of course a 2wd .

I do have enough room to build a pile or three and as soon as my road dries enough I plan to start. We've had over a year of heavier than normal rain and snow about two years worth in one.

Larry

PS I always water seedlings from the bottom forerunner. Thanks :clap:

I'm jealous and green with envy. Wish I could find something that close.

I hope your place is drier than mine, I'd never get the garden started in time if I waited for it to be dry enough to drive on.

Haha we've got water running out every step you take. I have a jeep with 6" lift and 33" mud terrain tires and its dragging going in and out the road. Might do better if I drove in the garden space. :pound:

Larry

Sort of off topic. I've been experimenting with "moveable" garden planters. Perhaps something that would start off the ground during our flood season maybe even in a greenhouse for starters then move them outside once things dry out a bit. Playing with building something on pallets that can be moved with a forklift. due to the heavy rains/flooding we are really limited to what can be started outside in the spring. And transplanting has its own issues. Do you guys think my thought might work? I'm mostly thinking about produce that doesn't like to be transplanted. I'm pretty new to gardening and seem to kill 50% of what I plant as is. Then transplanting I've had seasons that I end up with a total loss.

My goal is least trauma possible to the plants/seedlings. Its rather depressing to put all that work into a garden and end up with only enough usable produce to feed my family for a day or two and still be forced to go to the grocery store or farmers markets.

Holy smokes 2; 5 gallon buckets a day? Where do you work? And that's not extreme? My husband has a fit when I bring home 55gallons of wvo a week from work. Even though I process it into biodiesel and soap almost immediately.

I work at a hospital. While I value the score, with the guys around this thread I would have to bring home a truck a day to be extreme.

I'd use newspaper pots or soil blocks which are cheaper than peat pots. That way there is no root disturbance.

Assuming your forklift is a tractor with forks, I would think that big, deep planters on skids would be better, easier to manage, but that's a guess.

My concern is that in a garden, roots on many plants go very deep. I was surprised to learn that tomatoes can send roots 8 ft deep. Of course, maters will produce with more confined roots, but limit the roots and you most likely are limiting production. Maters transplant easily. So maybe the easy transplants just do in pots, and the hard to transplants you do in your boxes.

I don't have any science to cite to back this up, just an observation. Soil in pots and planters tends to get much heavier than good garden soil. It needs to be lightened with perlite (which I don't like to buy), or fine chips, or half finished compost, or something similar. If you are starting with soil that has a lot of clay, add sand to loosen it up.

I just purchased fruit trees from a local nursery and they use 100% half finished compost and have an extreme pile going to keep them supplied. It looked to be 6 ft high, and about 50' x 50'. Their system appears to be they fill pots from the front and add new material to the back, so the pile must slowly crawl across the field. Not a bad idea as the worms would naturally move towards the newer material.

Ready made natural compost. I have a couple of dry ponds on the farm. This one had wild pigs rooting in a hole 2 years ago, but that dried up and they moved on. It became nothing but a field of brambles. So brambles were pushed aside, and about quarter acre of peat, 6 - 18 inches deep, became this pile which is getting moved to the orchard. Based on what I've already loaded with a 1 yard loader, it appears to be about 150 cu-yards.

The fellow in the photos is my neighbor.

Any idea what something like that might look like?

Thankfully I've not had any issues with tomatoes. it's more the ground covering plants I have issues with, squash, cucumbers, bell peppers etc....

I've only ever used the black gold compost that we get from our own compost piles, should I be using something else?

Skids - I've seen folks build small barns/sheds or chicken coops on 2x8 PT, flat side to the ground and the tow end cut off at a 45 angle so that it doesn't dig end. I've never gone that big, but have done something similar and used the 3pt hitch to take the weight off the front end as I towed.

Your compost is probably perfect. If you have used it in pots before, take a look and see if it is packing down real tight or if it is remaining loose. Loose is better.

Following you guys I feel like I might be able to get the compost right. Now I just need to learn to keep the plants alive better in my high desert climate.

Need some ideas. About three months back, I cut a bunch of trees down to mill into lumber for the rebuild (house burned down back in July). I have my little 26hp kubota with a FEL and a 6" chipper. I have chipped up all the branches that are smaller than 6" but I still have tons of tree tops, big limbs, and other junk. It is really a mess and I'm sick of it. I looked into renting a big chipper but the only thing I can find is 12" and is $350 a day and would cost another $50 in gas to go get. If it could cut everything then it would be worth it but half the stuff is over 12" and very knotty. I'm thinking that I'm just going to burn it. Momma isn't happy seeing it and to be real, neither am I. Just looks like a big mess out there. I've put an ochard where the pines used to be and it will end up being a great place but right now it is a mess.

Thoughts?

thanks
Austin

Bury it in nitrogen rich compost. Let it rot down. Plant something pretty in top to please the Mrs. In a few years you can level the pile and the wood will be rotted and fragile if not gone.

Rich compost is a great idea but I have none. What I have on hand is tons of carbon. I'm not saying, carbon is a bad thing to have around but nitrogen rich is something that I long for....

I would love to put all this stuff in a hole or something but it is just too much.