Monday, January 18, 2010

The Crap Has Hit the Fan

Ok, in all fairness, it hasn't hit the fan, just our garden.  Since we are in Florida, while most of the rest of the world is still getting hit with their winter storms, it's time for us to begin thinking about our garden.  Just so you know what we're dealing with, here's a photo from last year.



The first thing we have to think about is compost.  Yes, ladies and gents, I'm talking about manure.  Poo.  Crap.  As Snoop would say - shizzle. 



Last year I left this up the the hubs.  We have some friends out in the country that have about 1,000 acres and raise cows.  Hubs and my brother went out on a poo scavenger hunt.  Walking around the property with shovels in hand, they piled the piles (hehe) into the bed of a truck.  Needless to say, that took all day. 

This year, we thought about purchasing it from a lady who bags it.  That didn't sound like the best plan for us because 1) we need a LOT and it would probably get expensive 2) We'd have to manually spread each bag 3) it was a little drive from us.

So I decided to consult the best friend a girl can have...craig.  You know, I checked his list.  Yeah, craigslist.  In the farm + garden section, I checked for manure.  No dice.  So I did what I didn't think would work, I put up a wanted ad for free manure.  Amazingly, we received 6 emails with people offering their manure.  We settled on a couple that lives only a few miles from us.  On Sunday, we put our shovel in the back of the truck thinking we'd be shoveling for hours (but again, it's free!) only to be ecstatic when we pulled up to the house to find the husband in a tractor.  Score!

They were the nicest couple who gave us a heaping truck bed full of fresh manure and compost, no shoveling required.  Once we got home, the spreading went quickly.  Somehow, I managed to foget to take a picture of the weighted down truck - what was I thinking? (This is not our truck our our steaming manure, but you get the point)



Next weekend, we'll till it into the soil and be one step closer to the fresh veges and herbs we love.  We probably could have gotten another truck bed full, but this will do wonders for the nutrients in our soil.

So I ask, has anyone else posted a wanted ad on craiglist?  Was is successful or not?  We learned a lesson that I'm sure we'll use in the future.

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