Today’s post took place on May 1, 2020. I was busy at work getting the nutrition needed for the plants. In the first video, I get rotting and slightly composted fruit and vegetable matter for the hugelkultur. In the second video, I get composted rabbit manure. And lastly, in the third video, I attempt to get river muck to add to the bed.
In this first video, you will see me going down into a big hole. This hole was dug with a backhoe and was initially supposed to be for dumping our composting toilet. The trouble was that there was not enough dirt to cover up the waste. What came up was mostly rocks. I used it for a hole to burn brush in and then I started dumping my vegetable/fruit waste there. Hence, there was a nice supply to add to the hugelkultur.
When I got my first rabbit, Foo Foo Bunny, I threw away her manure because I was using regular cat litter and I really didn’t think about using it. Then, I found out that rabbit manure was nutritious for plants with fresh manure having about 2 percent nitrogen, 1 percent phosphorus, and 1 percent potassium, according to the National Gardening Association. If it is composted the values change somewhat to about 2.4 percent nitrogen, 1.4 percent phosphorus, and 0.6 percent potassium, according to the University of Kentucky. I started using the cat litter scoop to get the rabbit droppings out of the litter and I would also take out the uneaten hay. I added these to a bag and let it just sit for a year because I had no use for it.
I started using a cat litter that was made from all corn, so I now can use the urine mixed in with the corn. Rabbit urine has more nitrogen than any other farm animal. It contains about 2.4 percent nitrogen, 1.4 percent phosphorus, and 0.6 percent potassium, according to the University of Kentucky. It is too strong to be poured around plants and needs to be diluted 1:5 with water. In my case, it is mixed in with the litter and if composted, some of the urine is going to be washed off into the soil.
Since I was trying to use mostly what I had available, I added the mixture of rabbit manure, rabbit urine, corn litter and hay to the hugelkultur. After further research, I see that I should have had more manure to mix in than I had.
River muck is made up of decayed plants and animal waste. It can add nutrition to the soil depending on how much got decayed in it. Just like the first video had a hole dug by a backhoe, the same was done for this hole. My ex-husband wanted to dig down to the bedrock at this end of the creek that is dry in the summer in hopes of finding gold. He was surprised to hit the water and no matter how he tried to pump it out, it just kept filling up with water. It is the perfect trap to catch plant matter in the winter as the water rages over it. I had it all planned that I was going to add some to my hugelkultur. I found out that May was the wrong time of year for this venture. The water was too deep for my feet to even touch the bottom and the water was too cold. I had to give up on the idea.