Reduce, Reuse, and Could I Have Your Fresh Horse Manure, Please?

Sometime after my sister and I went to college, my dad developed a passion for vegetable gardening. Along the way, he discovered composting and it became a daily ritual. On our visits home, he would show us what he was adding to the compost bin that day and proudly display the literal fruits of his labors. One of my favorite memories of my father is seeing him sit outside in old clothes and a straw hat to protect his face from another skin cancer, watching his garden grow.

I’ve always wanted a vegetable garden, but lack of knowledge, poor soil, small children, summer jobs, arthritis, etc., prevented me from attempting more than an occasional paltry tomato plant. They would produce about as much as I invested in their care – not much.

But, this year, I became my father’s child. I stumbled across Earth Boxes, developed by commercial growers and now also used in home and school gardens. The soil surface is raised about a foot off the ground and the boxes are completely self-contained, making it much easier for an arthritic me to plant and care for them. Our warm South Carolina springs allowed me to plant corn, okra, peppers, lettuce, cucumbers, spinach, blackberries, raspberries, and blueberries in mid-April. And tomatoes. My inexperience revealed itself when the tomatoes seedlings arrived; not realizing that they came in four- packs, I ended up with 36 plants, instead of the nine I thought I ordered. Once they were here, I wanted them all – cherry “Sugary” tomatoes, several varieties of heirlooms ( Rainbows, Red Brandywines, and Costoluto Genovese), Whoppers, and Beefy Boys.

And then it hit me – the need to compost, like an alarm from my biological clock screaming, “Do this now before it’s too late.” Here we sit, on two acres of property, most of which requires mulch for maintenance. The idea of free composted mulch was just too much for me to pass up.

I knew that arthritis would make it nearly impossible to turn compost regularly and shovel it up from the ground for spreading. And then I discovered another product developed over 40 years ago, the ComposTumbler, a drum rotated by a geared crank handle standing about three feet off the ground and said to turn 180 gallons of yard and kitchen waste into black gold in about two weeks. No bending, no kneeling, no lifting off the ground. Just fill it, crank it a few times a day, back the yard cart under it and fill ‘er up.

I was surprised to find how quickly our daily egg shells, coffee grinds, and raw fruit and vegetable scraps accumulated in the tumbler and pleased to see that I almost never ran the kitchen garbage disposal. We don’t really have that much yard waste since the drought that’s affected the South for years is in the process of killing our small areas of fescue. But, two acres of wooded property provide a lot of undergrowth and scrub trees to be shredded and composted, so I envisioned clearing our land of nuisance plants and then composting them for mulch to prevent their reappearance. The image of an environmental Eden took shape in my mind.

(Don’t let me mislead you; there was nothing cost-effective about setting all this up. New kink-free hoses, specialty sprinklers, supports for tomatoes and cucumbers, plant foods, and insect sprays added to the possibility and cost of my success. Seedlings are far more expensive than starting a garden from seed. I would have had to produce enough tomatoes to feed the entire city of Greenville to make this year’s efforts financially feasible. If you read my entry ‘One I’d Rather Not Write’, you’ll understand some of the impact of my personal gardening revolution on our financial health. If I can keep up the gardening and composting for at least five more years, I might finally save enough money in food costs to exceed the expense of the equipment.)

Our dear friends down the street have horses, goats, and chickens. They collect the animal droppings in a large pile in their pasture, allowing them to break down over time with no turning or activators to produce usable compost. They have more than they can use regularly, so I asked if I could have an occasional load of fresh manure to add to the tumbler. The manure adds nitrogen to the mix, providing the catalyst that breaks down the other “ingredients”. I can’t begin to explain the pure pleasure of filling our yard cart with the straw and manure taken from their barnyard, sittiing on the lowered back gate of our pickup, clutching the handle of the yard cart and holding on for dear life, as George slowly crept home. I thought of it as aromatherapy for the entire neighborhood. Shoveling that first load of manure into the ComposTumbler only made me want more.

In the two weeks it takes to break the contents down into compost, I had to pick up handfuls of the work in progress and squeeze it to make sure the moisture content was just right. I hate to garden in gloves, but decided this job probably called for a good water- proof pair. A thermometer also had to be inserted deep into the load to insure that the temperature was high enough to kill any bacteria or germinating seeds from waste plant materials. This required me to stick my entire arm in the tumbler, scraping manure and other scraps off the opening onto my shirt and bare skin. I admit that I usually headed straight for the shower after each of these required procedures. But, I was hooked and I began to dream how much better it would be to have two tumblers producing compost on alternating weeks. If only our friends had elephants…

The big day arrived after two weeks of cranking the drum around and around each day. I sent an email to my closest friends and family to announce the unveiling of the garden gold. My husband and I marveled that the smell of manure had given way to a sweet earthy fragrance, despite the obvious lumps of horse apples throughout. My first load produced two garden cartfuls of compost, enough to mulch several square feet four to five inches deep. When I proudly displayed the newly dressed areas of our yard to our friend, he shook his head, looked at the size of the rest of our property and said, “You’re going to need a lot more manure.” I wasn’t discouraged; after all, his animals are healthy.

Despite my impatience, our vegetables started producing in mid-June. Freshly picked cherry tomatoes are literally better than candy. And, coat any type of tomato with a little olive oil and basil, place it on the grill for just a few minutes, and it is mouth-watering. We eat lettuce just a few minutes after picking and our white “Pearl” cucumbers were the best I’ve ever tasted. I stuffed fresh peppers with shrimp and crab and even my husband, who hates the flavor of peppers, ate two. The okra is just beginning to come in and, despite my Southern heritage, I will opt to grill it with olive oil rather than frying it.

It turns out I should leave the corn to the pros. We managed to get two edible ears, but the kernels in no way resembled the perfect rows revealed beneath the shucks of grocery store produce. And my summer bout with pneumonia prevented me from regularly watering our thirsty cucumbers, causing them to wither and suffer an early death.

My planting boxes sit where I can see them from my office windows, lining the driveway and worked in among the landscaping. I’ve envisioned as many as twelve boxes next year, but, financially, that isn’t going to happen. I’ve already identified several vegetable varieties that I want to try next year; however, just like good writing, I will edit that list. I’ll also switch to seeds to bring the expense down to something more manageable. I’m looking for free mulch from our county recycling programs, but the composter will still tumble daily. Manure will still make it’s every-other weekly trip through our neighborhood and home-made compost will gradually spread throughout our yard.

One of my new daily principles is to live intentionally, tempered with common sense. This is where I want to be and this is what I want to do. A few weeks ago, I found myself sitting on the garden bench that George made for my birthday, wearing old clothes and a straw hat to protect my face from another skin cancer, dogs at my feet, watching my garden grow.

I am my father’s child and he would be proud.