Pennies From Heaven

I had probably the best possible compost experience possible today. Our local university has a lot of cattle and horses in the college of agriculture. Since the animals produce lots of waste every day, they do active composting on the university farm. They have a machine that agitates and turns it, and every year they use a lot of it on the university grounds to topdress of the lawns the athletic fields.

They also "sell" it to whoever comes out to the farm for about three weekends each spring. My neighbor went out there today and came back with his pickup full - I think for $20.00 or less. It was pure black gold; fine and moist, black and crumbly. He only wanted/needed about half and gave me the rest and wouldn't let me pay anything ofr it.

We quickly top-dressed all 6 of his 4x8 raised beds, a strip about 4 feet wide along 60 feet of fence, a couple of misc. flower beds, my 4 small raised beds, and filled two 18 gallon tote bins for later.

Now I'm really enthused about quickly getting another area ready for next year. If I get it done in the next week or two, maybe I can go out there and get another load.

Sure beats paying for it by the bag, and beats throwing away all those plastic bags! Now I just gotta think of a good way to show my thanks to my neighbor.

Duane

give him a flower bouquet or some produce from the beds.

Deep, burning jealousy...

Bake him something good...cookies, pie, cake, brownies--something along those lines.

Grow him some maters!

That's a great idea.

His garden is usually better than mine. But, I make homemade wine, and a bottle or three of that is probably just the thing.

Hmmmm. I've got lots of composted chicken manure I'd be happy to share.

:)

I've got a 13-yr.-old, 5-gallon jug of homemade peach brandy sitting in my closet.....

Dog-gone it!
...and here I'd thought i'd made out so totally awesome in scoring about 8 gallons of well composted shetland horse poo from my Mom in laws neighbor! The question is: hwo do I find out if UGa does anything like that?My hubby works there , and occassionally I get calls from him informing me that the Ag. dept is running one of thier sidewalk sales for that day only. (which of course does me No good cuase he doesn'tt know plants, and its an 80 minute drive up there).
Wow... whata neighbor to have!

ya know, if he gardens also- mabye you could order some lil trifle to help . Some kinda tomatoe tie, or even some nifty handmade basket for bringing in teh produce?
I really like dthe wine idea tho!!

Nin

ninnian- I'd be asking hubby if he could take some buckets to work and just make a pit stop at the far end of the barns before heading home! (my good neighbor gives me buckets from pool chems, with lids, or drywall compound buckets from construction sites, if not lids line with a bag he can twist closed.)

omigosh Sally,
he drives a toyota Corolla 80 minutes one way! Lid or not, I cannot imagine his reply!
Not to mention that I havent asked some of teh nearby horse folk for donations....( err.. umm.).. I got lucky to have fallen over that donation of composted mini horse poo!I'll be leaving my number with the notation that Im willing to muck it out myself!

Nin (still dreaming of a composting facility here-abouts)

Gee, what's he got against ten gallons of manure for the passenger seat???? No, I do know what you're saying- even in the back of a minivan it can be 'aromatic'
It's not always that easy to approach people about getting the manure . It might require some accomodation on their part because of where they dump it, gates....and if you don't have a pickup, the hauling, bagging whatever on your part. I guess thats why they can charge for bags of it at a store..
I was hoping to hit black gold when two barns near me vacated. too bad, they were not really in the boarding business for awhile, and both places were full of junk.

* snort* aromatic... heheheh

You know, I actually got up teh gumption to email a local "corn maze" place that I knew had Llamas. I very politely asked if they had any pellets I might procure. No word , and that was montsh ago.
People look at you strange sometime swhen you ask if they have any use for thier manure, and if they dont - could you have some?..

Why , I dont know.. dont they ever think along those lines?
Wow, so getting the 'paydirt' wasnt worth the effort. Bummer.

NIn