Squash in the manure pile

[ustmd]

Guess when I dumped the kitchen compost (from a rotating compost bin) in the manure pile, there were a few Spaghetti Squash seeds that had not broken down yet....:laughing:

This is about after 3 weeks and after a lot of rain....

 

[BlackOps]

whoa - already - that is impressive. I always appreciate the freestuff that come up via recycling.

 

[kthompson]

Do seeds break down very well in manure piles? I know you do not use horse manure due to that reason seeds will pas through them unharmed or many do. Now a cow's system not so.

 

[ustmd]

Do seeds break down very well in manure piles? I know you do not use horse manure due to that reason seeds will pas through them unharmed or many do. Now a cow's system not so.

If you get your pile hot enough, it should break down the seeds. Normally, we do not have an issue.

This happened because I dumped the compost from the kitchen on the manure pile before the kitchen stuff could cook enough and before I could turn the manure pile, we had these volunteers spring up...

 

[kthompson]

Thanks, we have a pile but we just keep piling on it and let it rot to fertilize the trees around it. It really gets more wood and grass on it.

 

[CalG]

Guess when I dumped the kitchen compost (from a rotating compost bin) in the manure pile, there were a few Spaghetti Squash seeds that had not broken down yet....:laughing:

This is about after 3 weeks and after a lot of rain....

Wonderful growth! The plants may not produce true to variety. We have had many volunteers over the years, and they are usually best as ornamentals. Last week end , my wife put some stakes at the edge of the pile and planted real seeds.

time will tell what we get.

 

[ustmd]

Wonderful growth! The plants may not produce true to variety. We have had many volunteers over the years, and they are usually best as ornamentals. Last week end , my wife put some stakes at the edge of the pile and planted real seeds.

time will tell what we get.

We are thinking about giving it a name and seeing if we can claim it as a dependent next year on taxes

 

[lostcreekranch]

You'll need to get it a Social Security # first.

 

[EddieWalker]

Last year we spread our compost pile around our big oak tree in our garden. This was to improve the soil there for flowers since nothing grew there. Just bare dirt. Once my wife started planting flowers, she noticed what she thought where weeds coming up all over the place, but after taking a few out, realized they where a combination of different types of vegetables. It was totally random what grew where, but also the most fun part in the garden because of it's randomness. Dozens of tomato plants, different types of squash, melons, peas, beans and a few others that all did extremely well. On a side note, that garden is in shade all afternoon and it's significantly cooler there then out in the open. We've come to realize the full sun, all day long, is bad for a garden here. Morning sun for half the day seems to be ideal. We've now started planting fruit trees along the Western side of our raised beds to provide more shade over our veggie garden.

 

[TractorTech]

You'll need to get it a Social Security # first.

Shouldn't be too hard to get a SS# under this government, it was born here!

 

[Soundguy]

Even if it was imported, apparently not a deal breaker either.

 

[teejk]

Could also be from a rotten squash that a bird/animal planted for you. We have domestic red raspberries behind my shop that until a few years was forest...

 

[Birdhunter1]

I moved a few bucket loads from my manure pile a few years ago to plant a flower bed, a few weeks after where I sliced the weed fabric to plant flowers I had noticed a plant shoot up that looked like a tomato plant.
Turns out it was and my wife had really nice grape tomatos right off the back porch.

 

[RSKY]

The reason old timers had pigs in the stables with the cows was that the pigs ate the corn, etc. that passed thru the cattle.

 

[ustmd]

We've come to realize the full sun, all day long, is bad for a garden here. Morning sun for half the day seems to be ideal. We've now started planting fruit trees along the Western side of our raised beds to provide more shade over our veggie garden.

We have found that as well. For most everything, that Central TX afternoon sun in June just cooks most plants.

 

[teejk]

And nobody is going to post the obvious..."this squash tastes like s***". Seems to me that the perfect spot to germinate seeds would be in a cow manure pile...fertilizer, heat, etc. Horse is highly alkaline. Poultry more so I think (that ammonia smell). Guessing pigs rate pretty high also.