Ellen Wallace
Photo: removing the winter’s manure pile, not a job everyone would enjoy. The white is snow that fell during the night.
Onions and garlic planted in October are coming up in the garden, and we noted this weekend that old manure we piled at the top of a hill in February is drying out nicely, ready for pumpkin seeds in late May. We think we are lucky 95% of the time to live close to a manure pile, a handy source of nature’s best fertilizer which farmer Bernard is happy to give us.
Back in the good old farming days cows munched out in the pasture and left cow pies that fertilized the fields. These days, many of the cows, such as the Val d’Herens ones in our Alpine area, spend winter inside the barn, coming out to pasture only in mid-April. All that hay they process has to end up, in digested form, somewhere. And by the end of winter it makes quite a pile just outside the barn. We don’t smell it in winter, with the cold air. It dries out fairly quickly. But come warmer weather the farmer has to get rid of it. Fortunately other farmers with fields need it.
Every spring, a man comes and takes away the manure. It’s a good day to go just about anyplace else, as stirring the stuff up does add a kind of ripe smell to the air. This is the 5% of the time when I’m not fond of farmer Bernard’s manure pile. But you should see our pumpkins, come October.
GenevaLunch, 7 April 2008.
Filed under: Garden
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