Microbes and Red Wigglers--Some of Our Most Important Livestock

Our horses have a forage based diet. We do not put down any poisons or modern fertilizers. My excursions into permaculture, biological farming, soil creation, water conservation, and pasture enhancement are the most exciting intellectual exercise that I have been involved in in years.

With the number of horses that we have we have an inexhaustible supply of horse manure. Like most horse owners my only thoughts about manure was to work for manure removal. We have grown way past the baby steps of removal and are moving more and more into viewing the problem of removal as an opportunity for enhancement.

Our pastures used to produce two primary crops--mud and dust. The soil in the sacrifice pens contained a great amount of wet manure that was, on occasion, used for wind row composting. The resulting compost was better than nothing for soil enhancement, but it did not radically change the soil structure.

The vermicompost does make such changes. The microbes in the compost attract earth worms and better root development. These changes reduce soil compaction allowing rain water to go into the soil instead of running off or creating deep mud surface layers. Our irrigation system allows us to grow grass regardless of the weather.

Our deep vermicompost pit has been working for over a year. I have only used small amounts of it in direct application to the soil. Friday we added nearly 1000 pounds of manure that had been sitting out in the paddocks in stud piles. I will simply leave it alone for several months.

We have the capacity to produce vermicompost on a small scale commercial level. We might begin doing that. We might find that the best financial benefit from the vermicompost is to continue to apply it directly and in teas spread over the pastures to increase forage production and decrease our hay costs.

Such questions create great opportunities for learning--both for the kid in the program and me.