Back in the day everyone had a dung heap. Before there were blue pills for gardens, there were cow do’s. And the cow do’s win (though don’t be poo-ist, whatever do’s you can get your hands on are great). Rotten manure grows the best soil, the best vegies and the best roses.
A dung heap is simply a pile of manure. Leaving manure to rot before using is the key. Don’t use it fresh!
- Pile it up somewhere the runoff will be appreciated eg near a rhubarb or around the edges of your vegie patch.
- Keep it covered.
- Add fresh do’s to the pile as you collect them.
- Scrape out rotten do’s as you need them to prepare a bed or for side dressing heavy feeders like leeks or brassica.
A dung heap will improve your garden like you wouldn’t believe. Poo is THE BEST.
Hi Kath, is any old manure good or are there considerations with what medicines or food etc the cows have been consuming? Thanks, Ella
Good thinking! Steer clear from manure from non organic animals. The life we are so carefully cultivating in our soils is killed off with antibiotics, herbicides in the pasture and drenches. Not for the first time in my life, I feel so sad at all our anti life practices.
Depending on where you live, it can be a bit of a mission to find organic manure but worth the hunt. Seaweed as an alternative? Get a guinea pig? One day Ella, all farmers will know what we know – the thrill of working alongside nature.
HI Kath, We have a couple of cows we grow organically for the freezer. I have collected their dung and layered into the compost heap, then started to make a brew with it but it all clogged up the tap.
I’m thinking just layering it into a drum and filling with water, stirring occasionally for 6 weeks, then pouring off the liquid diluted 10/1 and the residue in the drum poured over the compost heap.
Does this all sound sensible? or is there anything I could do better/different?
Cheers,
Tricia
So good having homegrown manure! If you site your tap a little above the bottom of the drum and add a filter you can greatly reduce the clog, so too filling a sack with the poop and suspending it in the drum like a giant tea bag. And yes all the leftovers on the compost heap or beneath a citrus or avocado for sure!