On 29/05/2012 19:14, Chris Hogg wrote:
On Tue, 29 May 2012 16:04:43 +0100, "Bob
wrote:

he's even heard a rumour of trials to make
composts out of chopped straw mixed with sewage sludge, would anyone want to
handle that?

You're too squeamish! When my BH lived in Gloucester, ~40 years ago,
she and her then husband used to get sewage sludge from the local
sewage works. There were great piles of the stuff, and the two of them
just shoveled it into bags before loading them into the car. Lovely
stuff, she said, very friable, but it always produced a crop of tomato
plants from the seeds in it that survived the passage through people's
guts!


In the old days they would go around Hong Kong collecting "Night soil"
which was then taken to "The New Territories" where it was used as
manure for the fruit and veg grown to supply Hong Kong.
This went on into the 60's.
When I was young we would dig out a trench and empty the cesspit into it
by bucket and recover with soil, this would then be where we grew our
runner beans and peas.
David @ the parched end of Swansea Bay