In article , Persephone
wrote:

On Mon, 07 May 2007 15:00:58 -0700, William Rose
wrote:

In article , Persephone
wrote:

On Mon, 07 May 2007 09:07:14 -0700, William Rose
wrote:

In article , Persephone
wrote:

On Mon, 7 May 2007 11:41:10 +1000, "FarmI" ask@itshall be given
wrote:

Persephone wrote in message
Some of my veggie patch has bare dirt that dries out fast.
I don't have enough home-made compost to do much,
so wondered if anybody had experience using worm castings
as top dressing. I have quite a bit of that left over.

Wow. I'd think that using worm casting to stop drying out would be
like
using gold. It'd work but seems to me to be a bit of a waste. Do you
have
access to a less precious mulch that would do the same job? For
around
small veggies and seedling, I use horse food ie chaff. It's very
fine,
and
once watered and settled in, doesn't blow away but keeps in moisture
quite
well in addition to adding to the humus levels of the soil.

Could you clarify term "horse food ie chaff". Is that something
I have to get at a horse place, or...? Sorry, not familiar with term.

Sounds promising.

Yes, worm ca$ting$ are overkill; I usually mix them with soil and
mulch and maybe some nutrients for planting/transplanting.

TIA

Couldn't you just buy a bale of hay from a feed store? A bale of hay
will cover a lot of area. Around here it is $5 from a store ans as low
as $3 from the grower.

- Bill
Coloribus gustibus non disputatum (mostly)

I see you fixed your .sig, Bill. Congrats.
Thanks, grrrrr

For OP - is chaff what remains when you thresh grain?

Do horses really eat that?-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaff

I don't have a way to get to a feed store; not driving at the moment,
and can't use a large quantity anyway.
No gardening buddies who you could split it with?

Sigh! Guess I'll have to see if there's enough cooked in there to
scoop out the composter. Tough job.
Sweat is good. Builds the cardio-vascular system. (At leas that's what
I'm telling myself right now. It's the hottest day of the year here so
far (91 F at 10 to 3 PM) I'm preparing a new corn bed (4'x8'). Turned it
by hand and incorporated 4 - 5 gal. buckets of horse manure into it.
I've just reset the drip and now I can plant my seedlings. I have a
dozen seedlings. My gardening book recommends against starting corn
inside. Any idea why? Well, a glass of water and back to the heat. I
gotta wrap up the garden pretty quickly because I'm about to be visited
by the curse of the "drinking class" (work).

- Bill
Halb betrunken ist heraus geworfnet gelt (immer)

So by that reasoning, Bill, we should get ganz betrunken to get our
money's worth.
Genau!

Reminds me of a story from the Talmud:
================

One item deals with Chanan the wicked. He stood before a court for
striking a man on his ear. His fine was equivalent to a certain coin.
His only coin had a face value twice as much as the penalty. His coin
was faulty, and no one would give him two smaller coins in exchange.
What to do? Chanan the wicked was not about to pay a greater fine
than necessary. He struck his victim on the other ear and surrendered
his coin (Bava Kamma, Chapter 4, page 37a).

================

Persephone

In for a dime in for a dollar. If something is worth doing, do it right.
The sense of the quote will be found along those lines. The people who
revered Bacchus saw it as liberating the body from the tyranny of the
mind. Unfortunately, this is a pathology for some and the rest of us are
sanctioned to silence for fear of empowering that pathology.

Anyway, back to reality (what a concept:-)

Tchuss,

- Bill
Coloribus gustibus non disputatum (mostly)