On lady bugs and manure.

[asdjrocky]

I've been told that I need to add lady bugs and some steer manure to my vegetable garden. So far it's all looking good and I've added nothing but water. I don't want any chemicals of any kind but someone mentioned lady bugs are good for pest control and steer manure is what is needed for fertilizer. I am trying to reuse and recycle as much as I can for my garden, so I don't want to add or buy anything unless I have to.

Any ideas from more experienced gardeners than myself? :hi: Thanks!

[RedLetterRev]

1. I've ordered ladybugs

in years past and they seem to have cut down tremendously on the aphid population. Though, if you're battling aphids, you first have to get rid of ants. For that, I've used beneficial nematodes. That's a sloooow boat to China, but it does work. You might check out sites like BugLogical for insect predators, if you're interested in doing the green/sustainable/no-chemistry thing. I've used BugLogical and they're quick to ship and the predators come live and healthy (you haven't lived until you've released a thousand ladybugs in your back yard :) )

As for the manure, I'd suggest using 6-year-old composted manure this time of year. I'm lucky enough to have 8-3/4 acres of land ... but if you've got neighbors, they probably wouldn't appreciate green (fresh) manure being applied to your garden. The stank can be right potent; worse in the heat of summer. If you do want to use green manure, I'd suggest waiting until fall when you can till it in with your tiller to work over winter.

This year I'm doing sort of a modified lasagna garden, doing a good bit of my composting in the furrows. I'm using a spring-cutting alfalfa hay, coffee grounds, tea bags, veggie waste (no meat), other gardening leftovers and paper shreds to get it started. I've done this with some success in town; now I'm trying it on a larger scale now that I've moved back to the country. So far, I'm pleased with the results.

Note: if you're going to use hay as a slow-release nitrogen source, stick with the earliest spring cutting you can get, else you'll wind up introducing an amazing amount of weeds. With any hay or straw, you're going to get SOME weeds. If you use a thick enough layer, what weeds you'll get with a spring cutting are easily pulled up. Lay those root-up in the furrows to dry. That adds to the composting mass. Every teensy bit builds up. The other benefit is that you'll need to water less often since the water you do provide won't be evaporating right back out of the ground. Tomatoes, cucumbers, watermelons and cantaloupes all seem to like having their roots shaded as well.

As for recycling, all that crap that shows up in the mailbox, along with old bills and statements you've already dutifully scanned and saved to CD (right?!?) makes wonderful compost-fluff and mulch. The shreds don't go to the landfill; help increase the acid in the soil for acid-loving plants; and if you tuck the shreds around plant bases then water immediately, they don't blow anywhere. They just stay put and keep grass and weeds from choking your favored plants. Amazingly, even after the shreds have matted down a bit, you can turn a hose right on them and the water goes right through -- and stays there. I've found that even though grass and weeds won't penetrate the mat, my bamboo, blackberry and raspberry canes don't seem to have a problem.

Hope this helps, or gives you some ideas.

[asdjrocky]

3. Thanks so much for the advice.

I'm composting now, so I have a load that is just about ready. And yes, it's got coffee filters, grounds, junk mail, newspaper, veggie scraps and lots of leafs and grass. I've even cut up a couple of old straw hats and tossed them in.

And of course, now I have another question, can I just use the compost to add to the top soil and save myself from buying cow shit?

[RedLetterRev]

5. My gardening is totally unorthodox

but what I do works for me. When I busted open and tilled up that mean old soil, I made the hills in the upper patch taller than usual. That allowed me some pretty deep furrows to start loading stuff in. I've been at this location a little over a year and when I bought the place it had been vacant for three. (If you go into my profile and go over to my blog, I've got a load of pictures. It was pretty sad when I moved in.) Since I've been working on taking the yard back from the 4' tall schnakey mess it was, I didn't get a regular composter set up in time for a garden this year (so much to do, so little money to do it with, sigh). So I'm making my upper patch do double duty, composting in the furrows. This lets me kill a few birds with a single stone: I've got slow-release nitrogen going all along as stuff decays at the bottom; it keeps me from having to weed so much; it holds the moisture close to the plant roots (we're already sliding back into severe drought again and I'm on a well); and what few weeds I do get, I pull them and plonk them on top of the heap, adding to the mass.

At the end of the year, I'll till the whole lot in and let it fester over winter, then fluff and cultivate it up again in spring. Lather, rinse, repeat until it's real dirt again. It'll take a few years, but I'm not spending a fortune (I don't have) on chemistry (that I don't want). Spring-cutting alfalfa hay is cheap enough for a 1200# round bale and works well enough as ballast for now. As the soil improves and my yield is better, I'll be able to use a lot less of that and more of what's grown, borne and died off.

I'm lucky to have an artesian spring at the bottom of the hill. I'm pulling extra jobs (anyone need a progressive wedding officiant? :D) to finish buying the stuff I need to put a solar pump down at the spring and draw water up to a storage tank for garden use. That'll probably be next spring's big project. Luckily, I'll only have the one lift from the bottom of the hill, then from where I plan to put the tank (a 1550g) I'll be able to gravity feed most of the berry patches and the veggie garden. Being able to keep the filled furrows damp will help speed the decay process.

I just went out and took some pics. I should have them up in about an hour or so from this post. Dindin time now, bbl!

[asdjrocky]

6. How funny you officiate weddings.

I've been in the wedding business for many years, preforming as a DJ at a little over 700 weddings in the last 12 or so years. As of now I'm officially retired, but just when I thought I was out, they are trying to pull me back in.

I certainly understand trying to save money on the garden. I've had to buy some soil, but other than that almost everything in my garden is a "found" item. Right now I've got about 300 invested all tolled, and it will be far less next year because most of the stuff I've gotten is a one time buy and the items can be used over and over again.

[RedLetterRev]

7. Officiating weddings is about the only way

English majors can get paid for creative writing :lol: It's a joyful craft though, not terribly strenuous, the gigs are relatively short and the pay is worthwhile. I've had to take more weddings than I'd planned to this year, but I found I needed toys like a tractor, a tiller, etc. It takes some doing to manage two acres of yard. Ergo, gardening, while it's my pleasure, has to be of the low-resource, low-impact, self-sustaining variety. It'll take a few years to get it where I want it, but what I've got out here in the sticks is time :)

I finally got those pics up. Unfortunately, at the same time, ActiveSync decided to erase all 200+ phone numbers and addresses slap off my phone. I knew I loved Linux better...

[ThomWV]

2. Bugs and manure. Garden scatology 101.

We don't do much of anything to try to control bugs other than we have a couple of guineas that run around and eat just about anything with wings. My comment is on the manure really.

I don't think I've ever heard or seen anyone call it 'steer' manure before, around here it would just be called cow shit or manure without further reference to the sex of the excreator. However its named we use a lot of it on a very small area.

When it comes to manure I buy mine. Actually it would be more correct to say I pay to have someone load mine because its actually free at the place where I get it. The local University research farm cleans their stalls daily and mixes the material with wood chips (bark mostly) that comes from elsewhere. They stack it in rows for a year and after that its available to the public for free. Just drive up and start loading. The farm hands will load it for you if you ask and there is a customary tip of $10 for all you want. With my F-250 long bed that comes to just about two and a half tons per load; you drive real slow and try your damedest not to hit any potholes with that kind of load on the truck.

By the time it gets to us its somewhere between a year and two years old. We apply it directly to the garden and plant directly into it. Because our gardens began where there was no soil at all - no kidding - it took us several years of more or less continuous application to get where we are today. This is really the first year that manure has been more as a touch up rather than a full force effort to build up some sort of garden soil where there was none before. So far this year we have used 4 truck loads, so that would be somewhere between 9 and 10 tons. Our main garden (vegetables) is made up of 3 rows, each 50 feet long and 4 feet wide, or just 600 square feet. Our second garden (herbs) is about 30 feet long and 6 feet wide, another 200 square feet at the most. Our other garden areas (flowers) get little manure, probably less than a half a truck load per year.

The point is you can lay it on thick if its a couple of years old and has been allowed to compost with other material. However I couldn't get away with using it the way we do if the source had been chickens or even hogs; horse would be fine though. The problem is some manure is simply too hot (too much nitrogen) and will harm plants if its too fresh. Chicken shit is probably the worst about that. If you can find a source the two sweetest manure sources available are rabbit and sheep. Except for size they are really about the same, very much like the ever present deer shit. I have seen strawberries absolutely flourish in year old sheep shit. Locally it is available just about 4 days out of the year (around easter time). If you are lucky enough to get a truck load then more power to you and your garden will be abundant, if not just hope for better luck next year.

[asdjrocky]

4. Lol, think I called it steer manure because that's what it says

on the bag. I've got good soil, and my plants don't seem to be hurting any. (Some are in raised boxes with added soil and some stuff are just planted right in the ground.) I just want to do everything I can to make it as good as it can be. Hence, the question.

I've all ready decided on the lady bugs because the idea of releasing them in the garden is just too irresistible to, er, well resist.

Sounds like you have one hell of a set up, I'd love to see some pics.

I call it the Funny Farm-

[Lone_Star_Dem]

8. You , my dear sir, have a found a gold mine.

The best I can get is a rancher willing to let me shovel (on my own) it out of his pile for free. Then I still have to compost it before I can use it.

You are one lucky person! Enjoy that free (or nearly so) composted cow poop! I'll just be sitting here turning green with envy. :P

I've thought of raising rabbits just for their poop before. I've seen it used and they produce a fertilizer that is nothing short of amazing!