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Compost Heap. Horse Manure. Pathogens.
"Ed" ex@directory wrote in message o.uk... I have a couple of large compost bins on my allotment which I regularly fill with compostable materials from home, but this only accounts for a few percent. For the most part, I go to the local riding stables where they bag up the horse manure and leave it outside for people to take for free. In the winter time, when the horses are inside the stables, the mix is heavy with straw and bedding. But now in the warmer months with the horses outside , it is mainly stuff gathered straight off the paddock areas where the horses pass their days. The thing is this. The bins are 4'x3'x3' and I just do not have the energy or strength to turn them. So , in effect they are cold compost heaps. I let the contents rot down over a 2 year period. But is there a danger that the pathogens in the horse dung will not die off (as they would if I were operating a hot heap) and that my family could become seriously ill if I use this composted material on my vegetable plot even if it is 2 years old? Don't know anything about this hot or cold compost business. We don't even have a bin, just a compost heap at the back of our garden (it's sort of contained by two sides of a rotting fence and a neighbour's stone outhouse) and have been 'mining' this from the bottom for the last 25 years. We dig it out from the bottom, then riddle it through a garden sieve, and use it on our garden and allotments. Everything organic, such as meat and veg bits from the kitchen goes into it, as well as dead bodies of rats and mice our cats catch, and feathers of pheasants we find on the road and prepare for the table, and poo and stuff we find in the garden. Also any other unpleasant thing, like food that has gone off. We cover the top of the heap with grass cuttings when we mow the lawn, and just keep piling the stuff on. It seems to take about 3 years for the stuff at the top to de-percolate down to the bottom. We collect horse manure and pile it in heaps nearby and when it rots down enough we shovel it onto the garden and allotments. I haven't heard of anyone getting sick from using home-made compost. WARNING: over the last year or so, horse manure is to be avoided, because apparently horse owners and farmers are using a new toxic weedkiller which the horses ingest in the field when grazing, and it passes through their gut and if you use the manure, it will kill your plants off. I understand that this will be discussed on Friday in Gardener's Question Time, BBC4, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006...sodes/upcoming someone |
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