Composters Beware - BBA is Watching

Yes I think burning the plants is in order, if you are up to gathering them . But I would say STAY OUT OF THE SMOKE, if you have not already thought of that. Get the fire hot first then they'll burn up quickly with their evil seeds.

What a smart lady you are; I didn't even think about the evils of the smoke, thank you!

Rick, I was surfing the 'net, looking for articles on straw bale gardening, and this blog excerpt from "Straw Bale Gardens Blog" reminded me of the question about the fresh manure conversation, because of the nature of the heat expelled:

" Put a heater under your plants?
Jan 25 2013
http://strawbalegardens.com/blog/page/2/
Straw Bale Gardening
Joel Karsten
4 Comments

. . .when the bales are “conditioning” they give off tons of heat like a natural furnace underneath. It is the bacteria that are doing the decomposition that create the heat as a naturally occurring phenomenon of the process. People often see a freshly stirred up compost pile will steam for a couple of days when new organic matter is added, this is another example of the heat generated by the actively consuming bacteria munching away on the freshly introduced organic matter. . . . "

I thought it was interesting, and wanted to share.

Rick I use two step because I am cautious about e-coli in compost. Plus in this arid part of Oregon, it does not lose a lot of nitrogen value from rain or much snow. If we are headed for a rainy period I will throw a tarp over it and weight it down so I don;t lose value to leaching. I sell vegetables at organic farmers markets and just want to be doublly sure I have no issue.

I don't worry about the manures I work into the ground in the fall, but I like to side dress during the growing season

>> I use two step because I am cautious about e-coli in compost.
>> I sell vegetables at organic farmers markets and just want to be doubly sure I have no issue.

I understand. One hot cooking with a high-N pile, then passing that compost through another composting but with NO added fresh manure minimizes the chance or farm animal E. coli coming through the whole process. In aviation software, we would take about MTBF (mean time between failures) and expected rates of failure, like 10^-6 or 10^-9 per hour of flight.

I think you're smart to consider the wishes of your intended customers. When I think about how many multi-antibiotic-resistant strains are evolving, maybe the FSMA is wiser than I think. Certainly few farmers will be as careful as you are, and some percentage will be downright reckless.

>> Plus in this arid part of Oregon, it does not lose a lot of nitrogen value from rain or much snow. ... rainy period I will throw a tarp over it and weight it down so I don;t lose value to leaching.

Every cloud has a silver lining! I never thought about arid climates limiting nutrient looss from compost heaps. Does it cause salinity problems?

I was just reading a 1905 book or textbook on Agriculture, and the author was very concerned about losing N and humus to leaching and microbial action. He thought it was best (if you had enough time) to haul fresh manure to the field every day, "for coarse feeders like corn". But he saw value in aging or rotting (composting) fresh manure for vegetables and truck crops:

“If it is desired to apply manure directly to delicate rooted truck and vegetable crops it is best to let it stand for some time until the first rank fermentation has taken place and the manure has become rotten.”

“ The First Book Of Farming” © 1905 by Charles L. Goodrich (Faremer and USDA expert)

“The manure may be hauled directly to the field each day and spread on the surface or plowed in. This method is the best when practicable because fermentation of the manure will take place slowly in the soil and the gases produced will be absorbed and retained by the soil.”

BUT he said:

““If it is desired to apply manure directly to delicate rooted truck and vegetable crops it is best to let it stand for some time until the first rank fermentation has taken place and the manure has become rotten.”

“For the vegetable garden and flower garden and lawns, it is best to apply only manure that has been piled for some time and has been turned over several times so that it is well rotted and broken up. “

To reduce the loss of nutrients from manure, he advised mixing “hot” manures like horses' with “cold” manures like cows', and having lots of litter and bedding in both.

I think that's 1905-talk for mixing “browns with greens”.

“The presence of considerable amounts of soluble nitrogen hastens the rapidity of the fermentation.”

“... a number of compounds of nitrogen, potash, etc., are formed which are soluble in water. It is these that form the dark brown liquid that sometimes oozes out from the base of the manure heap. “

“A good practice is to apply the manure in its fresh condition to coarse feeding crops like corn, and then follow the corn by a more delicate rooted crop which requires the manure to be in a more decomposed condition than is necessary for the corn. In this case the corn is satisfied and the remaining manure is in proper condition for the following crop when it is planted.”

“Another practice is to broadcast the coarse manure on grass land and then when the hay is harvested the sod and remaining manure are plowed under for the following crop.”

THat book makes some sense.
Seems he must mean spreading fresh manure in the fallow season, can you spread and tille manure on growing corn? Maybe when it is young and short. And he is talking about field corn, I think, so it is dried up on the stalks before harvest. But still, getting e coli into the silage, or dried corn...not sure about that. Or maybe when manure is spread in the field like that, under healthy soil conditions, the e coli does not survive. It thrives in animal guts, not on dirt. (I do agree with nancy nurse, her practices are smart)

Its not the farmers I am worried about (thought there are idiots in every profession) but the employees who are more likely to slip on the correct practices when the farmer is occupied elsewhere.

I'm confused by a couple references I saw to horse manure being 'hot'. Around here you typically get stable bedding with lots of sawdust, and not really hot. OTOH my neighbor used to get cow manure. pee yew. We had a dairy barn here and those cows were muddy poopy slop to the belly (with sparkling clean udders). Seems like the cow manure they would have to give away would be wet scrapings off the parlor floor, no bedding.. Cows don't get bedding...do they?

In 1905, one needed to go no further than outside ones front door to find fresh manure. I remember horse-and-carts in the street when I was a child, and I was born in1944.

Also, back then, farm animals were mostly raised on grass and oats, unlike modern animals that are force-fed corn and soy that has been genetically modified and drowned in herbicides and pesticides.

In may parent's garden, fresh manure was always composted through the winter, then dug into the soil in the spring.

(I was born and raised in England)

It's a good point, that the diet (and care?) of farm animals supplying the manure is very different.

A feedlot or dairy manure situation would be drastically different from the small horse barn farms we have a lot of around here..