Barbalee said:Those are mighty good lookin' maure producers, Lyn!

I miss our horses, and their "deposits".
Lyn, what part of Los Angeles did you come from? I was a "Valley Girl". We have a lot of LA transplants on the Iris forum.

iciris said:I miss our horses, and their "deposits".
Lyn, what part of Los Angeles did you come from? I was a "Valley Girl". We have a lot of LA transplants on the Iris forum.

Highland Park, right before I moved. Before that lived in Silverlake, before that Echo Park. Grew up in Orange County.

I severely miss black composted horse manure. I could get all I wanted from our neighbor in Colorado.

Blessings

I have plenty to share. All you need to do is figure out how to get it from here to there..............

Flat Rate boxes ?

LOL!!!

That would surprise the CA inspectors.

I'll bet they would get some strange reactions from the 'sniffer dogs' , too !

When in New Jersey I was near a chicken farm. What an odor collecting and hauling that stuff. It really had to be used sparingly though. Much rather have horses help me, but none near me here in PA. So send a few of those flat rate boxes this way please.

DaveinPA said:When in New Jersey I was near a chicken farm. What an odor collecting and hauling that stuff. It really had to be used sparingly though. Much rather have horses help me, but none near me here in PA. So send a few of those flat rate boxes this way please.

There must be some near you. where exactly are you ? PA is such a horsey state. composted horse manure smells like dirt, not poop --- though fresh horse poop generally smells pretty nice, as opposed to cow ---uuuuugh --- for example.

South of Harrisburg; have not met anyone yet who owns a horse or two or more since being here. I have heard a chicken or two and a cow or two. Have not given up though. Local trash collector does not compost but "recycles" garden waste in their waste-to-electric generator station. Not at all what I want as recycling. I sometimes have gotten compost via a son-in-law in Maryland but only two trash cans full at a time.

chicken manure is supposedly good for delphinuium. Not sure about irises.

So should one use that stuff marked manure at Lowes and the like sparingly or is it WELL rotted and maybe composted?

DaveinPA said:South of Harrisburg; have not met anyone yet who owns a horse or two or more since being here. I have heard a chicken or two and a cow or two. Have not given up though. Local trash collector does not compost but "recycles" garden waste in their waste-to-electric generator station. Not at all what I want as recycling. I sometimes have gotten compost via a son-in-law in Maryland but only two trash cans full at a time.

Dave this a huge horse expo every year in Harrisburg, in the fall as I recall called Equine Affaire. What you need is to google horse farms, stables etc a place with a lot of horses. Each horsey pie makes about 50 lbs of poop each day, so facilities with many living there are inundated. I work at a horse farm where there around 2 dozen, give or take. Even though we spread some on our hayfields, we still have mountains and are delighted when organic farmers come haul some away. We don't charge the farmers anything - if you offered the farm some money and showed up with a truck ready to do your own shoveling, they'd probably jump for joy. They might even refuse the money, but they'll think kindly of you for offering. The main thing is that you do the work. No horse farm has enough hours in the day to do what has to be done. Good luck.

Dave -- where is Harrisburg in relation to Philadelphia?

Mary Ann-About 2-2.5 hours west and a little north, along the PA turnpike. The area is fast being built up and losing farms. Lots of trucking businesses like Amazon and other warehouses because of the proximity to the PA Tpk, I-83, I-81, I-78.

Lyn-will be checking around; I'd like to haul a couple of trash cans full of manure periodically. Nearest property with horses was sold last year, but they only had 2 or 3 and a large field so nothing to spare.

Meanwhile I am adding all kitchen veg/fruit waste to the soil between the rows/clumps and away from the roots-without composting. In about 3-4 months most is unrecognizable [except banana peel stickers] and helping the clay soil become looser, more friable. I also did this all winter when the ground was not frozen, and it has now been a year of additions; now I am starting all over again.

I don't usually add non composted material directly to my garden. The composting process can tie up needed nutrients and organisms in the soil that my garden needs. I guess it would not matter in small amounts.

I read once where, in the depleted soils of Europe, they used what they called the "three row system"....one row held the "crop", the 2nd row was where manure,.... animal AND human...kitchen scraps, etc. was buried, and the third row was a "cover crop". The use of the row was alternated, over the three years. Downside, only one third of the field was "producing a crop"....upside was that there WAS a crop . I do only "cold " composting....everything from the kitchen, and plant waste (except for iris parts), including *some* of my grass clippings, goes into one, of two large piles. In the early spring, I fork off the un decayed stuff, then scoop out the "good stuff", and replace the un decayed stuff back , to what will be the "start" of the next pile.
iris "parts" , and any 'deadheads" that would introduce seeds to the soil, all go to the "dump"( we have a separate collection for "green waste"). I only use the "compost" on veggie gardens, all the iris beds get their organics (too MUCH organics, in fact!)through the use of alfalfa meal, corn gluten meal, and a fully composted mix of peat / cow manure...

OK Dave -- I have a friend who is about an hour W/NW of Philadelphia, who has horses -- and who would love to have someone to take manure off her hands....... if you don't find someone closer!!