Black Gold - Horse Manure

This batch was a little hotter but will be usable come fall, it's heavy with hay and straw which makes me very happy because I don't have to mix leaves into the manure.

Rusty Horse Shoes

Given to me by Norma for rust dyeing, she's my horse manure supplier, I can't wait to see what kinds of patterns I come up with.

Spring Time Rocks!

Will post some pictures tomorrow, but was actually able to spend some time outside today in the gardens, mostly picking up debris, limbs, and the like.  Tomorrow it's supposed to be 62F here and if it's not too windy I will be uncovering the front gardens.  Still lots to do, leaves and branches to be shredded, horse manure needs to be fetched for the compost bins, pots to be cleaned, seeds to be started, but I sure do LOVE spring time!

Horse Manure

We picked up a load of aged horse manure last night to put on the east garden. First we put down a layer of chipped leaves and compost, then a layer of garden lime, then the manure, then another layer of lime. By the time we were done tilling up the remaining sod in the side yard, to make one continious garden space, it was too dark and too late to chip the remaining leaves to put on top of the manure! This is my first year lasanga gardening.

Compost Bin Update

Now finished we've been using the compost and have since added about a half ton of rotted horse manure to the mix. We haven't ever had problems with critters in our compost pile, unless you count two legged critters!

Garden's In!

Well after spending all day yesterday scrubbing the laundry room from top to bottom (it flooded this past along with everything else) I was finally able to get the remainder of the south and east gardens in tonight, before it begins raining again. A good portion of my cucumbers didn't come up so I planted watermelons a small fruit variety type that matures in 73 days or less. So come August I should have some ripe melons hopefully.

So the only thing that is left to tackle is the north garden, but the junk pile needs to be removed. First we need to find a source of clean fill dirt and then haul the remaining horse manure to the site and get it "composting".