Sunday, April 20, 2025 - What is the Best Animal Manure for the Garden?

There are many factors to consider when determining which is the best manure for you to use in the garden, like age of manure, cost to buy, distance to travel, ease of spreading, etc. If all factors are equal, then by far, the best manure to use in the garden is bird manure. Here’s why…

Animals produce two types of bodily wastes; liquid waste (urine), and solid waste (feces). Mammals eliminate their bodily wastes in two separate actions; urine in one action and feces in a different action. Birds combine the two streams together and eliminate both in a single action. This is important…

One of the main active ingredients of commercial fertilizer is urea, which is also the main ingredient in urine. It is the urea that provides the nitrogen-rich component that plants require for growth. There are other nutrients like phosphorus and potassium present as well.


See the chart to compare the nutritional values for the different animal species.

Popular posts from this blog

Sunday, August 18, 2024 – STOP DUMPING BRANCHES

Image
To whomever is bringing their branches from home and dumping them in our compost pile… STOP IT! First of all, this compost pile is for the organic material produced in THIS community garden. It is not for your compost from home. Take those items to your local ECO station or compost them in YOUR yard! Second of all, although branches are organic, they will take forever to decompose when not mulched into smaller pieces
Read more

Sunday, November 17, 2024 - Preventing Blossom End Rot

Image
Blossom end rot is when the side of the fruit that attaches to the plant begins to shrivel and rot. This can happen on some or all of the fruit on a plant. Thankfully, blossom end rot is not the result of a virus or disease, but is generally caused from a lack of calcium.  An organic solution to avoid blossom end rot, is to add crushed eggshells when you transplant your seedlings. The calcium in eggshells is 90% absorbable, and is probably the best natural source of calcium that we have available to us. And it’s free! Collecting and preparing eggshells is as simple as 1, 2, 3… 1-       Save your eggshells in a large bowl on your counter as you use the eggs. 2-       Leave the shells in the bowl to dry. 3-       Crush the eggshells into small pieces by hand or with a food processor / blender. (The smaller the piece, the easier the calcium will be absorbed by the plant) Use your crushed eggshells...
Read more

Wednesday, July 2, 2025 - How to Keep Deer From Eating Your Plants

Image
    We have had several reports that deer have been feasting in the garden at night. While annoying to be sure, it is a fact of nature that we just have to deal with pest control of one kind or another. Here are some ideas that you can use to help keep the deer from snacking on your treasured plants… Choose Deer-Resistant Plants While hungry deer may eat just about anything, they tend to avoid prickly and fuzzy foliage . And, they don’t really like heavily fragranced plants, either. Experiment with different textured and aromatic plants. Try using them as borders for your garden beds.     Place Bar Soap Near Plants To keep deer away, many gardeners turn to ordinary bar soap . The scent is said to interfere with their sensitive sense of smell. Choose a brand with a powerful fragrance (I’m told Irish Spring is a favourite), and hang bars from strings in large shrubs or attach bars to stakes and place them around the edges of your garden beds. Scatter...
Read more