A great advantage to owning a horse..................

D

daughter's groom

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......has become apparent today. I am lifting my potato crop and it is phenomenal. No doubt in part due to the equine by-product that I dug liberally into my vegetable plot last autumn. Could use money I save on buying potatoes to buy something nice for the producers of said by-product!
 
I think I may look slightly strange if I went home with a bag full of poop from the livery yard! It's amazing how wonderful the natural stuff over chemicals is though!

Where I live lots of people sell the 'by products' for a couple of quid per large potato bag (lots of villages, lots of garden and grow your own enthuasiasts!)- perhaps you can do the same with any spare and make even more money for the producers :D
 
I must look very strange as I just chuck 4 large trugs of stulff in the car and take it home. Might add that awful car is dedicated to horse activities!
 
misskk88 said:
I think I may look slightly strange if I went home with a bag full of poop from the livery yard! It's amazing how wonderful the natural stuff over chemicals is though!

Ignore what others think - why would it look any stranger loading poo from your livery yard, than loading poo you have bought from another source?? You have the added advantage of knowing exactly where it' from and what is in it!!
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I have been thinking about bringing some 'leavings' (as OH so delicately calls it!) home for my garden - how do those of you that use it do so? I know it has to be well rotted first, so do you dig it out of the muck heap at the yard, or do you bring home the fresh stuff and have a composter to rot it in there?
 
Actually horse much can be used neat it is the ammonia filled straw bedding that has to rot down. I load the bags as I go round in the wheel barrow and bring it home and dig it straight into the garden wonderful for tubs and boxes too it fills the bottom half of the tub so saves on compost too
 
I woudln't use horse muck fresh as it can scorch I think - well rotted is best. we have a separate poo only muck heap at the stables, that the past few years I've advertised on allottment noticeboards for people to come and take it for free.
 
Generally I wait until the muck heap (mainly straw with some shavings) is collected and the black rotten stuff is often left behind as the muck heap is so huge (50+ horses) it won't all fit in the truck. I collect the black stuff in buckets with black bin liners inside them and give them to my parents and grandparents - my grandpa's roses have never been so good!
 
stencilface said:
I woudln't use horse muck fresh as it can scorch I think - well rotted is best. we have a separate poo only muck heap at the stables, that the past few years I've advertised on allottment noticeboards for people to come and take it for free.
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Yes, I thought it could scorch when fresh too. I also thought it ideally needed to mixed with some bedding or similar to aid rotting? I daresay digging it into my raised beds over winter would be ok as they are empty then so would have time to rot before planting in spring/summer.
 
Nope I was a professional gardener and use it fresh I only wait for the bedding from stables to rot as it is high in ammonia and can burn I have just top dressed my entire garden from the trailer picked from this week Bedding rotted down aerates the soil better but the raw stuff is fine as fertiliser and to improve soil. I also use the contents of the wormery straight off
 
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FubsyMog said:
Yes, I thought it could scorch when fresh too. I also thought it ideally needed to mixed with some bedding or similar to aid rotting? I daresay digging it into my raised beds over winter would be ok as they are empty then so would have time to rot before planting in spring/summer.
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Nope, manure will rot fine by itself, ours is essentially vermicompost as is just jam packed with worms when you dig into it
 
Thanks windandrain and stencilface - I am very much a novice gardener so information is always good! Have you ever tried growing mushrooms in the manure?
 
mum used to fill a bucket, and then our landlord discovered she had a source of manure and would bring his trailer down to the yard to lift a trailer-full off the muck heap.
 
Well every autumn I dig it straight in, fresh from the stable and leave it to rot down over the winter. In the spring I dig compost from the bottom of the muck heap and top dress with that. This compost we suspect is 15+ years old! My veggies are always fab, though this year's excellent growing weather has helped of course.
 
We have a few people in the village who want our horse by products. But didn't want the bedding mixed in, they pick a field and pick their own.

Love my field as my mare is so friendly and normally the women are giving her a good scratch and the blokes poo picking, either way not complaining. They only do it when YO about.
 
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