Compost Options

[indiandirt]

Hello everyone, I am new here, and I have a couple of questions. My local feed store has Cotton Hulls, and Manure compost. I was wondering if any of you have used Cotton Hulls in your garden? It's been 4 years since I have done a garden, (last time a hail storm wiped out all of my tomato plants ) I was very upset, needless to say. Any info would be greatly appreciated.

[dice]

Cotton hulls tend to be heavily contaminated with pesticides
that are sprayed on commercial cotton fields. Not recommended
around veggies.

(Too bad, it would be a great source of free or nearly free
organic matter otherwise.)

The manure compost is probably fine. (If you have a truck
and search around, you can probably get horse manure
for free somewhere nearby. It piles up pretty fast for
people with horses. Great soil amendment or compost
ingredient.)

[dice]

PS: You can search Craigs List Dallas for free manure close
to you.

For example:
http://dallas.craigslist.org/search/...min&maxAsk=max

(I went to Craigs List, Dallas, http://dallas.craigslist.org/
then clicked on "free" in the for sale category, and did
a word search in the search form at the top of the page
for "manure". Some other good free category searches:
"garden", "mulch", "chips", "lava", "leaves", "hay", and
so on. The hay one is for bales that have gotten wet and
moldy and can't be used for animal food anymore. Great
compost or mulch.)

[Medbury Gardens]

Problem with using hay is it tends to have seed in it,ok if you going to hot compost it

[dice]

[hay seeds]

Could be a problem in summer. I could lay it out in winter here,
and the squirrels and small birds would have stripped it clean
by spring.

(Dang squirrels also have acquired a taste for bean sprouts,
which decimated the bell beans part of my winter cover crop
mix. The stuff I seeded in August was ok, because they had
plenty of other food around, but the seeds started after the
veggies were all pulled barely made it out of the ground before
the squirrels ate the bean sprouts. Downside to an Indian
Summer.)

[hasshoes]

Great post. . . I've been wondering about horse poop myself.

Does it have to be composted/ allowed to break down first?

Do you usually have to do that yourself and how long does that take?

Is there anything I should be on the lookout for? Any questions to ask the people you might be getting it from?

Thanks in advance.

[creister]

You are not talking about cotton burr compost are you? I know that the soilmender brand cotton burr compost is available in Texas, and comes from a safe source as far as the pesticides are concerned. Aren't you in the DFW metro area? Check out dirtdoctor.com site for ogranic help. I havae used the cottonburr compost from soil mender, and it is very good compost.

[dice]

I thought I replied to the horse manure question in this thread,
but I don't see it. I replied to the wrong thread?

Where I get horse manure, it is in a large, covered pile. New
stuff goes in at one end, and I load from the other end, so it
has usually already been composting for at least a few months,
and it is dry.

If it happens to be real fresh (because someone else with
a big truck cleaned out most of it the week before), what
happens depends on what time of year it is. If it is summer,
I add it to a compost pile. If it is winter, I either add it to
compost or spread it on beds a foot thick (depends on how
much space I have where) to be turned under in spring. If it is
early to mid-spring and the soil is dry enough, I just turn it into
the beds. You can do that up to a couple of weeks before
transplant without bothering the transplants that go into it.
(Horse manure is not a very "hot" manure, and it does not
require the degree of composting that bird manures need
before using them to avoid burning tender young plants.)

If mulching with it, well-composted or fresh, you probably want
to cover it with a thick enough layer of shredded leaves, wood
chips, or straw so that you are not walking around in horse
manure when you tend your plants.

Watch for llama manure, too. It releases nutrients slowly enough
that you can use it in the garden immediately.

[kevokie]

Originally Posted by dice

Watch for llama manure, too. It releases nutrients slowly enough
that you can use it in the garden immediately.

I hear the same goes for rabbit manure. My FIL is gonna use "home grown" rabbit manure this year.

[hasshoes]

Thanks dice. Good stuff to know!

[roamwhereiwant2]

The info on horse manure is great. Now I've got to borrow a pickup (recently replaced my SUV with a Civic). I can relate to squirrel issues. They tormented me for years until I acquired an indoor/outdoor cat. Realistically, he acquired me when he showed up at my backdoor and refused to go home. I hate the way he plays with chipmunks and squirrels before he kills them. It seems to go on forever and I've even caught him so they could escape. But he does keep the buggers out of my garden and attic.

Yvonne

[dice]

PS: One thing I left out, re: horse manure. Ask the suppliers
if they lime their stalls (some big racetracks do it to absorb
odors). That can make the horse manure a high-pH amendment,
no big deal if your soil tends toward acid and you normally need
to add a little lime anyway, but it can inhibit plant growth if
your soil is near-neutral pH or a little alkaline.

I have an outdoor cat, but he considers squirrels too much
trouble to chase and catch (they are too big and they bite).
Birds and mice are more his style.

Our squirrels are brave (some might say arrogant). They will
let a cat or dog sneak up to 4-6' away from them before they
bother to run away.