We have been desperate for poo. Not desperate for a poo. Desperate for horse poo, well rotted preferably. We paid 80 euros for 10 hefty bags of well rotted stuff but it is expensive and we need about 100 times that much if we are to cover what needs covering in 4 inches of poo/compost (see earlier) which, as disciples of Charles Dowding and his ‘no dig’ method, is what we are aiming to do.
In a fit of genius (sorry to sound immodest but it was pretty clever of me) I put a post on a Facebook group for second hand stuff in Aquitaine, asking if there was anyone nearby who had horse manure. Normally I bloody hate Facebook, and that Aquitaine group is nearly (but not quite) as annoying as the ‘gardening in France’ group which mostly consists of people asking unutterably gormless questions (“Is it time to plant my hollyhock seeds?”) – have they never read a book or used google, these people? Aaaaaanyway. My enquiry on Facebook led to three or four people pretty local to us all popping up and saying they had plenty. The closest was about 20 minutes away so we arranged to go see him today.
The instructions were to follow a certain road to the end. We found the road and went nearly to the end of it but bottled out first time with all the ‘beware of the dog’ signs and no indication of human habitation. We turned around and had another go and ended up in the same place, so ‘gulp’ got out of the car and (hoping not to get bitten by a mad dog) went in search of the proprieter. Who soon appeared and was a very nice man. Turns out he takes traumatized or difficult former racehorses and rehabilitates them – wonderful thing to do. Anyway he led us to the pile of horseshit, gave us a fork and left us to it.
Hard work forking it into a trailer, then hard work the other end forking it into barrows and trailing round the garden mulching the beds and plants, but on we go. Knackered. But happy as pigs in shit.
Ruby&Ruch 