Manure Tea and reality

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In a message dated 6/24/00 8:32:13 PM US Mountain Standard Time,

Samba.SDG (AT) pamho (DOT) net writes:

 

>

> > Manure tea is great stuff at least here out in the dry desert. If

> > your manure is well rotted it "generally " has never damaged my crops. My

> > rule of thumb for my climate is if the plants are heavy feeders I feed

> > once a week with 20 liters of water and three liters of dry poop. Let

> > soak in for a night and pour it on in the morning. I put my manure in a a

> > ladies stocking and hang in the water.

>

> Hare Krsna!

>

> OK this is a bit clearer, but I don't yet get the dosage. You give one plant

> 20 litters of water, or one bed? We have beds of 100 Sq. feet each, or 4'X

> 25'. I would have thought that I would need a good bit more than 20 litres

> for that. In general I give such a bed about 40 litres, beyond that (at a

> reasonable delivery speed) and the water starts to run off.

No! silly, you give your plants how ever much (Manure) water they normally

need Perhaps twice or three times a week. That recipe is just an idea of how

to mix up manure teas. I use 20 liter buckets because I have access to them

very cheaply. And also as I get older those buckets seem to get heavier each

day. You can avoid hauling buckets and water cans if you get a two hundred

liter metal or plastic drum and fill it with manure tea and syphon it out to

your plants through a long hose. Or a series of drums and hoses. Scattered

handely around your beds.

 

 

> Samba my friend do not beat your self up. We were all beginners at one time

in our lives. You seem to have the misfortune to be alone without near by

help or advice. Well, That is how I started out my self! Welcome to the

club it is cold and lonely when you are alone. But you are just a mouse

click away from some kind of help. All climates are different. Where I live

the temp can change forty degrees F in a day And we haven't had but two

inches of rain in ten months. ( our monsoon has just started) that is tough

to grow in. We each have our trials. Well, then lets roll up our sleeves

and see what we can do to help. TaTa Ta Cyber farmers to the rescue!!

>

> Let me introduce you to the wooly thinking of a greenhorn. We learned about

> double dug raised beds, and how good they are for root development. We have

> to add a process to the general making of such beds, which is putting all

> the earth through a sieve to get the stones out (each seive-full is one

> quarter stone) and move the stones out the way. Consequently it takes an age

> to make a bed. At this rate it will take us at least a year to make two

> acres of beds (that timeframe includes doing all our fencing, irrigation

> laying, and compost shed making). But then I figured that not everything is

> best suited to such beds. I am just coming to grips with the fact that it

> seems it will take too long to manually deal (using hand spades, forks etc)

> with 2 acres of raised beds. We are going to have to start thinking about

> using some machines to sow seeds, prepare the soil etc. Animal drawn

> machines of course, or small mechanical machines, until we can get an ox.

>So Samba don't knock your self out Remember the K.i.s.s. theory (Keep it

simple stupid) Do what you have to do to survive. Make one rased bed a week

or month and just work the soil however you can. Given love, manure, water

and protection most plants that are suited for an area will grow quite well

inspite of the books and well established farmers with lots of help and

advice. Your plants need nutriments and water and protection from praetors.

Not much else Oh if you had an ideal climate and lots of money and laborers

you could have a beautiful trophy farm but the yield might not be any better

than yours but it might be. Do what you can and get on with it.

> So I started to think just now, about semi de-rocking an acre of the land.

> Getting one of those rototiller out (do they actually turn the soil, and is

> that good?) and making one acre of semi prepared soil, and then planting

out

> a variety of crops, in strips (companion style), instead of insisting on

> Making these great, yet time consuming beds. Does that make sense?

> Yes, Samba it really does make sense. While a trophy garden would be

wonderful an occasional attack of common sense will save your farm. In a

real world where life was not as wonderful as we would like, it would be

Ideal to have such beds. Reality however frequently rears its ugly head and

saves you. Rototiller (the good ones) really do work. They save your back,

which you must have and time which is what farmers never seem to have enough.

I have had times when I just dumped straw and manure tea on top of it and

planted seeds into the straw no tilling no prep nothing, and to my amazement

it worked. Inspite of what all the farming books and old farmers say no body

is always correct. I always dreamed of a beautiful trophy garden raised beds

and all. But alas, It was never to be. my gardens were always messy and

ugly. I however did have a great yield. I used straw and manure, some hand

turned rows some machine turned some tractor plowed land. If you want to be

a purest it is a lot of work and while it looks beautiful the only thing that

counts is the yield and the health of the land. REMEMBER THAT! Yield and

the health of your soil is the two most important things you need to

concentrate on. Loose soil makes the seeds "dig in" better. But then in the

wild plants grow and fruit and drop its seeds and if they find good..... not

Ideal circumstances they germinate and hopefully grow. The farmer is a

shepherd to the plants. We make it easy for them to get started and protect

them from enemies such as drought, heat, predators and poor soil. Seedlings

can grow in really tough environments if given proper nutrition and adequate

soil. So if you need a green house build one. If you do not have the time or

money to build such an edifice. A simple cold frame will work. A cold frame

is just a box dug into the ground You fill it with soft soil and mulch and

manure and treat it like it was in the rows. You can let it lay on top of the

ground with insulation around it and a sheet of glass or plastic doubled to

let in the heat and trap it there. The box will be tilted to the North in

your neck of the woods. The top is hinged with a glass or plastic lid. When

the day warms up you must open the glass or plastic lid to keep from cooking

the seedlings, you of course close it in the late afternoon to trap the heat.

When the seedlings get to transplantable size you start little by little

leaving the top cracked up higher till the plants have "hardened off." Then

transplant!

 

> When you have never tried to make a go of any land whatsoever, what to

speak

> of two acres or more, it is really baffling how to go about it, and I admit

> to being pretty baffled, although some light does get through occasionally

>

> I'm, not giving up, far from it, I am really relishing this adventure, it

> just gets frustrating when an oversight ends up In three weeks of

repetitive

> weeding or something. I just wish I had someone with a lot of experience to

> come over here, and show us the ropes.

 

> Well, Samba It has been my experience that no one ever gets the help they

need when they need it. If the helping hand you need isn't at the end of your

arm it probably wont be there. A sad but true fact!

 

> Another problem I am not sure how to resolve. We are at 500 meters

> elevation. I took the soil temperature the other day and in the morning the

> soil is only at about 10 degrees Celsius. At mid day it can rise to about 18

> or maybe 20, but on a rainy day it wont get much above 14 or 15.

>

> This is a difficult climate to germinate seeds in. The temperature is a bit

> low, but if I made a greenhouse it might get too hot. Because there is no

> long term tradition of farming in the country, the locals just grow what

> does well with chemicals and know nothing else. Most of the books written

> deal with cold northern climes or the tropics, its difficult to get data on

> a transitional zone like ours. If I was an experienced farm hand, I would

> probably not have much problem adjusting, but being a rank neophyte, its

> just another baffling problem on top of the others!

>

>