Manuring and Mulching

I’ve heard that a gentleman is someone who can play the bagpipes and doesn’t. I have recently taken on a job making a window for someone in the valley and my thoughts were wandering along similar lines today when I finally decided to pull the pin and not do it. Little things were going wrong and the quality wasn’t going to be as good as I would like. For similar money they could get a joiner to do a better job and with far less stress for me. I noticed a few years ago that I don’t deal particularly well with stress. I can do it for a while, conjuring up illusions of competence and coping, but before long I’m twitching in the corner in need of a cup of tea and some Tim Tam therapy.


So I went home and walked around the horse paddock scooping up horse poo with Em and Noah. Shit shovelling I can do. We got so much done in the late afternoon sun, manuring and mulching the garden. I borrowed a book from Rob on composting and it’s the best book I’ve read all day. In it Tim Marshall talks of how to make leaf mould, the phosphorous content of bracken, the nitrogen content of different animal manures, the alkalinity of wood ash – my kind of book.


“I’m grateful that I holded those mushrooms that were in the straw.”
(Confused? Look)

Worm juice

Our garden has seven beds in it, set up for crop rotation. Today I weeded the potato bed which had peas, beans and brassicas in it last year, and will have carrots, parsnips and beetroot in it next year. The soil is rich and moist from the weeds that were protecting it. Worms abound. To weed it and leave it bare feels like I’m killing it. We are planning to plant potatoes soon and I’m going to add compost, manure and some lime, then cover it with mulch and give it time to break down, breed some life. The soil will also be inoculated with worm juice, made from steeping worm castings in water, not the black liquid that collects in the bottom of plastic worm farms. The worms have a symbiotic relationship with soil bacteria, both sowing and feeding on the microbes that also break down the organic matter and the still water is too anaerobic for the oxygen loving bacteria. More and more I think that good farming depends on good bacteria farming.

The castings are soaked, suspended in a drum of water with added carbon and nitrogen to allow the bacteria to colonise the water. Oxygen is also required so I will either have to stir vigorously for about an hour or get an aquarium pump. I’m planning to do trials, side by side in the veggie garden, testing whether I get better crops and improved resistance to disease with regular sprays of the worm juice. A test plot in the paddock is next.


I used the shredder today to break up the lemongrass we took out so I could add it to the final layers of the compost. I don’t feel great about using the shredder, using petrol to make compost. I’m not sure I’ll do it again, even though it works well for uncomposty material like lemongrass. The shredder is Sue and Rob's who have had it for years, Rob always maintaining it - sharpening the cutter, replacing the bearings.

I will have to add some more poo in the top layer. I’m really liking the soupy poo I'm experimenting with. Besides stinking it also makes a thick sauce that soaks right in to all the layers, making great conditions for the bacteria to feed and multiply, heating it up and transforming it.


We all worked in the garden today, getting things done, one job flowing on to the next, surprised to find later that we had gotten burnt. The garden needed some work. We neglected it last year in the push to get into the Dairy and then it was suddenly full of rampant kikuyu. We’ve spent months mustering up the energy to weed it, mulch the paths, reclaim it. Spring is almost here and we’re getting it ready to explode.

“I’m grateful that we all worked in the garden and had a nice day.”
(Confused? Look)