P80325‘Fertilizer’ is a polite term for ‘recycled vegetation’.

‘Recycled vegetation’ is a polite term for something else.

This is not a synthetic type of fertilizer that gets tossed about or poured on. It gets added to compost and allowed to compost some more before being spread out as a mulch over the surface of the soil, just before chipped vegetation gets dispersed over the top. Alternatively, it sometimes gets mixed into the soil. It is quite useful. You can’t beat the price.

It is recycled differently from the compost or chipped vegetation (from a brush chipper). It is recycled through a horse, or more specifically, two horses. As the picture above suggests, it begins at the front of the horse, and ends at the rear of the horse, which is not pictured.

The horses happen to be quite efficient at recycling vegetation. They do it all the time. They are probably doing it right now. I would describe the process, but I do not know how it works.

Three times weekly, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, some poor sucker must go to where the horses live and work to collect the binned ‘fertilizer’, and deliver it to the compost pile. By the time it gets mixed into the compost, and composted more, it is not recognizable. Otherwise, it might be a problem in the parts of the landscape where it gets dispersed with the compost.

The landscape seems to like it. Only a few plants with special needs get any sort of synthetic fertilizer.

This sort of recycling is not new technology. It has been around as long as horses have been serving humans. In fact, it was not even invented by humans. Horses were doing it long before humans merely discovered, refined and took the credit for it.P80325+

25 thoughts on “Fertilizer”

  1. We still have those who use horse and cart to make a living collecting recycling: https://www.facebook.com/CartHorseProtection/ and of course horses do what they must on the road and it has crossed my mind to go and bag the stuff when I’ve seen it in our neighbourhood! Also on our green belts where those who own horses exercise them. But then maybe I’d be seen as the dotty old lady who collects horse poo 🙂

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    1. One of the annoyances about horses it that they do not ‘do’ anything. People board them and go out and run them around a little bit and then leave, or they keep them in their yards, feed them and clean up after them. No one cleans up after those that walk through the park (which is not a problem on the bridle path). ATVs are trendy and do work that horses could help with, but no one thinks of asking their horses to do any sort of work. (Most people do as little work as possible, but ride around on their ATVs to look like they are active, while hiring out their work.) Horses seem to be incredibly bored. When I was in school, they still helped to drive cattle.

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    1. Goodness! I somehow trashed your comment. I am so sorry about that. I clicked on the wrong icon.
      Sheep are rare in our region. We have no access to ewe poo. The name sounds funny though. Like . . . Ew!

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  5. I used to scoop it at local stables when the owner alerted gardeners that it was ready. Usually there was a line of cars waiting their turn. It’s a heck of lot better than using ‘night soil’ as they do in some areas.

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  6. Mmmm. I use cow manure sometimes and someone in my community garden has been known to pick up truck loads of buffalo manure. When I had a horse, we used the leavings on the garden. It’s all good. And then there’s chicken manure, which is hot, hot, hot and stinky! but exceedingly rich for some reason!

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    1. There are no cattle nearby, and only a few cows. I would not pay money for their fertilizer from the garden center if horse fertilizer is free. There are only a few hens, and their fertilizer comes mixed with the old wood shavings, so has never been a problem, even when dispersed directly.

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  7. Back in the 1940’s in the UK many people down my street had small gardens and deliveries of various goods came by horse and cart. As horses randomly do what they have to do, the keen gardeners, of which my Dad was one, had a bucket and shovel parked at the front gate. It was one of my jobs to dash out when I saw a deposit and scoop it up before the other neighbours got to it. Even today out in the country areas you can see bags of horse poo on the road side, usually with a $2 to $5 sign on them

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