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Horse Manure
In March 2006 we bought five Australian miniature ponies. The plan was,
they would keep the grass down and provide us with plenty of manure for all the
garden beds. Well, they kept the grass down, no problems at all. Unfortunately,
they did this so well, that we had to sell two of them in the same year. Two
years later we have three small ponies grazing in the paddocks. We still
get as much manure as we are happy to collect - and more! The ideal number of
ponies for us would be one or two, because our paddocks are not prime grazing
land. All the flat land on the banks of the winter creek is degraded and the
grass does not grow very well there. It would really be great, if we could
plant green manure here or some lucerne hay, to regenerate the land. But apart
from the horses, about a dozen wallabies graze here at night as well, and any
area where we put down seeds, definitely needs fencing beforehand. And that's a
lot of expense and work. Maybe next season...
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The horse manure works very well as fertilizer. During
the first year we used nothing else. |
Complete Organic Fertilizer
The more books we read, the clearer it became: just manure is not enough!
There are that many theories out there about which fertilizer is the best for
which plants. It's just so complicated, and we only wanted to use one type of
fertilizer everywhere, rather than mix or buy different things for different
uses. And it had to be organic! And reasonably cheap! And easily available!
Finally we found the answer in Steve Solomon's book Growing Vegetables South
of Australia (see resources).
Steve Solomon describes "Making and Using Complete Organic
Fertilizer" right at the beginning of his book (page 15). If you are
interested in a lot of detailed info regarding all types of fertilizers and
green manures, Steve's book is highly recommended. Steve's recipe for -what he
calls, and what we now also call- "Complete Organic Fertilizer" (COF)
is quite simple and all the ingredients can be bought (in Tasmania) at our
local produce agency: three parts (by volume) seedmeal, one part blood and bone
meal, 1/2 part of agricultural lime and 1/2 part of dolomite lime. For even
better results 1/2 part of guano and 1/2 part of kelpmeal can be added. We
never bothered with the kelpmeal, but sometimes (for fast growing plants) used
the guano. It's easily available here, but expensive.
Here are some of the prices we pay in Tasmania (2008). 25kg of AG lime and
dolomite lime each are under $10, 20kg of linseedmeal costs about $28, 25kg of
blood and bone are about $27, but the guano is $35 for 20kg and that's why we
use it sparingly. All in all that adds up to about $110 for a mixture
of 110 kg of COF or $1 per kg, without the guano. It's quite a bit
cheaper than dynamic lifter, but many times stronger, plus we know what is in
it.
We have now (April 2008) used COF for a full growing cycle, and the results are
absolutely astounding. Steve writes which amounts he recommends for which
plants, and in which intervals to apply it. We have simplified things a bit
ourselves. We still use a lot of manure on our beds before planting, but also
as side dressing over the growing season. We now only use COF before planting.
We mix up about six litres of COF and spread it over the length of our standard
eight metre row, then dig it in and plant.
Last season we used COF as a side dressing as well, but found that not as easy
as we thought. We left the COF just sitting on top of the beds, hoping the
watering would dissolve it, but that didn't happen. The COF just formed a hard
crust and did not penetrate into the soil. A waste of time and money. We tried
to mix COF with some soil, and that worked better, but we think six litres over
an eight metre bed at time of planting added by manure then, plus more manure
later, plus -where applicable (see rotation schedule for vegie
garden and kitchen
garden) a green manure crop should be enough fertilizer in most
cases. We are still learning, though!
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This bed was planted with Royal Burgundy bush beans on
December 6th, 2007. It was grass before the planting. We turned the sod
and broke it up with the spade as well as possible. Then we added quite
a bit of manure plus COF and mixed it all thoroughly with the spade
again. No other fertilizer was added and the plants grew very well and
we harvested a really good crop of very tasty beans! |
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