In article , Ohioguy
wrote:

I am curious as to what part of the country you live in, and wondering
if it may be a "local" shortage there.

I'm in SW Ohio. As I said, 10 years ago, all the big stores and
hardware stores had bags of composted cow manure this time of year.
Right now, I only found one small garden center that carried it, but had
sold out, and Meijer, where I ended up getting bags for $1.19 each.

All the other places only had bags of topsoil, humus, "humus with
composted cow manure" (but didn't tell how much of each), and mulch.

Why the need for cow manure? I gave you a comparative list of manures so
that you could adjust your application.

Conversion factors

Manure Chicken Diary cow Horse Steer Rabbit Sheep
N 1.1 .257 .70 .70 2.4 .70
P .80 .15 .30 .30 1.4 .30
K .50 .25 .60 .40 .60 .90
Http://www.plantea.com/manuer.htm

Manure Alfalfa Fish Emulsion
N 3 5
P 1 1
K 2 1



Ex. Say you want to add 20 lbs of cow manure to a 100 sq. ft. bed but
all you have is chicken manure.

N for cow manure is .257 and 1.1 for chicken manure.

(1.1N) X (?lbs chicken) = (.257N) X (20 lbs cow)
? lbs chicken = [(.257N)/(1.1N)](20 lbs cow)
? lbs chicken = 4.7 lbs
4.7 lbs chicken = 20 lbs cow

Plus you would get a little extra phosphorus (good for flowering and
roots). You may want to add a pound or two of wood ash though.
It would also be good to add 15 lbs of organic material (or compost) of
your choice.
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Arn3lF5XSUg
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/HZinn_page.html

(large snipping took place; but no one was hurt)


I have a feeling that nature can all by itself can create
new deadly
diseases. Not all new deadly diseases are man made.
However, with bad
human habits the human race can speedup natures wrath.

Hmmm... I sometimes wonder about the ways farmers use to
do things.

I wonder if the old way were truly sustainable. The way
the worlds
population grows, was it not easier just to keep planting
and taking
without extensive fertilization. When the land gets
exhausted, sell the
land to a home developer and by new untapped land for farm
use. Then
repeat the process? This has been going on for thousands
of years.

I'll have to disagree with you on farmers practices.
Farmers were and
still are some of the poorest people on this earth.
Production means $$
in the bank so farmers quickly caught own to crop rotation.
Farmers
may sound dumb sometimes but they aint. When they did chop
up their
fields, it was into acres & acres.....not lots.


Now that all the land on this planet is accounted for by
overpopulation.
Can any land be truly self sustaining? I am always buying
extra:
compost, lime and organic fertilizers for the land. I
often Rob Peter to
pay Paul! I save my grass clippings and straw for the
compost piles to
feed my vegetable gardens. When the grass suffers, I buy
fertilizers for
the lawn. I have my doubts about the human race being
truly self
sustaining.

I have a mulcher mower so my yard stays pretty green on its
own.


As for the water supply, I do believe that the water you
drank today may
have come from some dinosaurs ****. But the human race
with their new
products are binding up lots of water in man made products
that will
never be recycled back into the water supply.

Doom and Gloom... Dan

It may seem all doom and gloom but thankfully it isn't. And
it's Friday!

Have a bright, sunshiny day!

Donna


--
Enjoy Life... Dan

Garden in Zone 5 South East Michigan.

"Lelandite" wrote:

I have a mulcher mower so my yard stays pretty green on its
own.

Any rotary mower can be a mulching mower, simply install mulching
blades.... I wouldn't mow any other way... collecting clippings is
pure silliness. Mulching blades remain sharper longer too because
they are configured to cut progressively at several heights... the
cutting edge on a mulching blade is about double the length of the
cutting edge on a regular mower blade. They are designed to cut each
clipping several times into much shorter lengths, and while mowing
distribute the fine clippings back to the lawn evenly, where they
totally decompose in less than 48 hours. Collecting clippings,
composting them, and attempting to distribute it back evenly is a lot
of fruitless labor. Between mulching mowing and critter poop I never
need to fertilize.

Mowers fitted with mulching blades:
http://i45.tinypic.com/jpfz3d.jpg

One of my fertilizing crews at work:
http://i50.tinypic.com/15fkj69.jpg

A fertilizing crew taking a union break... they are all legals btw:
http://i46.tinypic.com/28j8sm.jpg

In article ,
"Lelandite" wrote:

(large snipping took place; but no one was hurt)


I have a feeling that nature can all by itself can create
new deadly
diseases. Not all new deadly diseases are man made.
However, with bad
human habits the human race can speedup natures wrath.

Hmmm... I sometimes wonder about the ways farmers use to
do things.

I wonder if the old way were truly sustainable. The way
the worlds
population grows, was it not easier just to keep planting
and taking
without extensive fertilization. When the land gets
exhausted, sell the
land to a home developer and by new untapped land for farm
use. Then
repeat the process? This has been going on for thousands
of years.

I'll have to disagree with you on farmers practices.
Farmers were and
still are some of the poorest people on this earth.
Production means $$
in the bank so farmers quickly caught own to crop rotation.
Farmers
may sound dumb sometimes but they aint. When they did chop
up their
fields, it was into acres & acres.....not lots.

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan

http://www.amazon.com/Omnivores-Dile...ls/dp/01430385
83/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1206815576&sr=1-1

p.45 - 46
Growing corn, which from a biological perspective had always been a
process of capturing sunlight to turn it into food, has in no small
measure become a process of converting fossil fuels into food. This
shift explains the color of the land: The reason Greene County is no
longer green for half the year is because the farmer who can buy
synthetic fertility no longer needs cover crops to capture a whole
year's worth of sunlight he has plugged himself into a new source of
energy. When you add together the natural gas in the fertilizer to the
fossil fuels it takes to make the pesticides, drive the tractors, and
harvest, dry, and transport the corn, you find that every bushel of
industrial corn requires the equivalent of between a quarter and a third
of a gallon of oil to grow it‹or around fifty gallons of oil per acre of
corn. (Some estimates are much higher.)

Put another way, it takes **more than a calorie of fossil fuel energy to
produce a calorie of food; before the advent of chemical fertilizer the
Naylor farm produced more than two calories of food energy for every
calorie of energy invested**.

Now that all the land on this planet is accounted for by
overpopulation.
Can any land be truly self sustaining? I am always buying
extra:
compost, lime and organic fertilizers for the land. I
often Rob Peter to
pay Paul! I save my grass clippings and straw for the
compost piles to
feed my vegetable gardens. When the grass suffers, I buy
fertilizers for
the lawn. I have my doubts about the human race being
truly self
sustaining.

I have a mulcher mower so my yard stays pretty green on its
own.


As for the water supply, I do believe that the water you
drank today may
have come from some dinosaurs ****. But the human race
with their new
products are binding up lots of water in man made products
that will
never be recycled back into the water supply.

Doom and Gloom... Dan

It may seem all doom and gloom but thankfully it isn't. And
it's Friday!

Have a bright, sunshiny day!

Donna


--
Enjoy Life... Dan

Garden in Zone 5 South East Michigan.
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Arn3lF5XSUg
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/HZinn_page.html

Lelandite wrote:
And e-coli is another reason why everyone should wash their
raw vegtables
bought from a chain store, such as strawberries, lettuce.
It's not hard to
figure out why.

I'm very grateful that I live in a small enough town that
uses not use recycle
human waste. The larger municipal's state that their water
meets EPA
guidelines for drinking water. Guidelines are not good
enough for me.
They can make all the claims they want regardings recycling
human waste
products and it's safety, but, nope, I aint a gonna drink
it.


All the water that you drink has been recycled many many times whether it
has been through a plant designated for the purpose or not. You are showing
a reaction to the yuk factor which is not rational.

All my drinking water comes from my roof. Some people say 'eeew don't birds
shit on your roof'. I tell them they sure do and you are drinking it right
now. Highly sophisticated water supply systems in rich countries have 'do
not drink' scares from time to time.

I also lived in a small town that did not use "recycled" water but took it
from the river, all natural as nature intended. When the area went into
drought the river would get lower and lower and the water plant would add
more and more chlorine to counteract the ever growing bacterial count from
dead animals, their faeces, sediments that had been stirred up etc.

The path that the water takes to get to your tap is not the only factor that
determines if it is safe, all the possible pathways may get contaminated.
EPA testing is one way to know what the quality of your water is. But it
cannot counteract the yuk factor.

David

In article ,
"Lelandite" wrote:

(large snipping took place; but no one was hurt)


I have a feeling that nature can all by itself can create
new deadly
diseases. Not all new deadly diseases are man made.
However, with bad
human habits the human race can speedup natures wrath.

Hmmm... I sometimes wonder about the ways farmers use to
do things.

I wonder if the old way were truly sustainable. The way
the worlds
population grows, was it not easier just to keep planting
and taking
without extensive fertilization. When the land gets
exhausted, sell the
land to a home developer and by new untapped land for farm
use. Then
repeat the process? This has been going on for thousands
of years.

I'll have to disagree with you on farmers practices.
Farmers were and
still are some of the poorest people on this earth.
Production means $$
in the bank so farmers quickly caught own to crop rotation.
Farmers
may sound dumb sometimes but they aint. When they did chop
up their
fields, it was into acres & acres.....not lots.

Then the acres & acres split into lots then homes.

Now that all the land on this planet is accounted for by
overpopulation.
Can any land be truly self sustaining? I am always buying
extra:
compost, lime and organic fertilizers for the land. I
often Rob Peter to
pay Paul! I save my grass clippings and straw for the
compost piles to
feed my vegetable gardens. When the grass suffers, I buy
fertilizers for
the lawn. I have my doubts about the human race being
truly self
sustaining.

I have a mulcher mower so my yard stays pretty green on its
own.
Cool, then you but fertilizer for the garden instead?
Are you truly a self sufficient gardener?

As for the water supply, I do believe that the water you
drank today may
have come from some dinosaurs ****. But the human race
with their new
products are binding up lots of water in man made products
that will
never be recycled back into the water supply.

Doom and Gloom... Dan

It may seem all doom and gloom but thankfully it isn't. And
it's Friday!

Have a bright, sunshiny day!

Thanks, but I could also use the rain

--
Enjoy Life... Dan

Garden in Zone 5 South East Michigan.

In article ,
"David Hare-Scott" wrote:

Lelandite wrote:
And e-coli is another reason why everyone should wash their
raw vegtables
bought from a chain store, such as strawberries, lettuce.
It's not hard to
figure out why.

I'm very grateful that I live in a small enough town that
uses not use recycle
human waste. The larger municipal's state that their water
meets EPA
guidelines for drinking water. Guidelines are not good
enough for me.
They can make all the claims they want regardings recycling
human waste
products and it's safety, but, nope, I aint a gonna drink
it.


All the water that you drink has been recycled many many times whether it
has been through a plant designated for the purpose or not. You are showing
a reaction to the yuk factor which is not rational.

All my drinking water comes from my roof. Some people say 'eeew don't birds
shit on your roof'. I tell them they sure do and you are drinking it right
now. Highly sophisticated water supply systems in rich countries have 'do
not drink' scares from time to time.

I also lived in a small town that did not use "recycled" water but took it
from the river, all natural as nature intended. When the area went into
drought the river would get lower and lower and the water plant would add
more and more chlorine to counteract the ever growing bacterial count from
dead animals, their faeces, sediments that had been stirred up etc.

The path that the water takes to get to your tap is not the only factor that
determines if it is safe, all the possible pathways may get contaminated.
EPA testing is one way to know what the quality of your water is. But it
cannot counteract the yuk factor.

David

A few people in the suburbs that are sick of the high cost of their
water bills, they are installing their own roof water collecting into
cisterns. They run the water though their own purification system and
have plenty of water that meets their entire water needs at a 10 tenth
the cost of city water. Many say the system pays for itself in less than
three years.

I have a well system. Someday I may put in a cistern for the garden.

--
Enjoy Life... Dan

Garden in Zone 5 South East Michigan.

"Dan L." wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Lelandite" wrote:

(large snipping took place; but no one was hurt)


I have a feeling that nature can all by itself can
create
new deadly
diseases. Not all new deadly diseases are man made.
However, with bad
human habits the human race can speedup natures wrath.

Hmmm... I sometimes wonder about the ways farmers use
to
do things.

I wonder if the old way were truly sustainable. The way
the worlds
population grows, was it not easier just to keep
planting
and taking
without extensive fertilization. When the land gets
exhausted, sell the
land to a home developer and by new untapped land for
farm
use. Then
repeat the process? This has been going on for
thousands
of years.

I'll have to disagree with you on farmers practices.
Farmers were and
still are some of the poorest people on this earth.
Production means $$
in the bank so farmers quickly caught own to crop
rotation.
Farmers
may sound dumb sometimes but they aint. When they did
chop
up their
fields, it was into acres & acres.....not lots.

Then the acres & acres split into lots then homes.

and the people screamed! it was their land and they can
do whatever they wanted to. There's no money into farming
these days but when a developer comes around and flashes
all those dollar signs, well, we either buy the farm land or
shut up. Here in WA we have bought a lot of farm land and
are still buying. Some farmers are recognizing their
importance
to the USA and have set their lands into conservative
status.
Means lower taxes to them and they get to keep the farm.



Now that all the land on this planet is accounted for
by
overpopulation.
Can any land be truly self sustaining? I am always
buying
extra:
compost, lime and organic fertilizers for the land. I
often Rob Peter to
pay Paul! I save my grass clippings and straw for the
compost piles to
feed my vegetable gardens. When the grass suffers, I
buy
fertilizers for
the lawn. I have my doubts about the human race being
truly self
sustaining.

I have a mulcher mower so my yard stays pretty green on
its
own.
Cool, then you but fertilizer for the garden instead?
Are you truly a self sufficient gardener?

some of my mower waste goes into the garden. But most of it
stays on the ground. I do buy yard fertilizer but it's
suppose
to be the good kind.

Self sufficient? For many many years, to many then I want
to
count, yes, I was a true self-sufficient gardener and raised
cattle. I'm old now and depend on others. But then you
here
about the bad stuff even in cans. I don't have enough land
to
raise enough food for myself. Government policies are a
must
when it comes to food. But, alas, most of the time they
don't
know or look the other way.


As for the water supply, I do believe that the water
you
drank today may
have come from some dinosaurs ****. But the human race
with their new
products are binding up lots of water in man made
products
that will
never be recycled back into the water supply.

Doom and Gloom... Dan

It may seem all doom and gloom but thankfully it isn't.
And
it's Friday!

Have a bright, sunshiny day!

Thanks, but I could also use the rain

--
Enjoy Life... Dan

ditto here and we finally got it in downpours and hail
and then
sunshine and then more downpours. It's still raining out.
Rhubard is loving it as are my raspberries and
boysenberries.

Enjoy the weekend.

Donna
in wet ole WA


Garden in Zone 5 South East Michigan.