Since I planted my little garden on a Thursday, I have been spending more time looking at it on Thursdays than any other day. I’m a creature of habit. Now it is Tuesday, so I’ll write what I remember from last week.
So yes, I went to get a bag of horse poop. With my kids in the car. I laid a plastic sheet across the floor of the trunk and took everything else out. I was prepared for our ride home to be quite stinky.
The farm where I went to get the poop was in the hills south of the freeway in Thousand Oaks. The farmhands were cleaning up a horse paddock, and I had gotten there a few minutes early, so I stood there awkwardly in the horsey smelling parking area hoping to get their attention. One of them finally looked up and I said “Sorry, I’m early. I just want one bag.”
So the farmhand closest to me looked at the one near the barn and without speaking at all he gathered up the bag he was filling and brought it to my trunk. My kids watched from inside the air-conditioned car.
That was it, then.
“Thanks,” I waved, and then we left. With 40 pounds of horse poop, something that I usually try to avoid.
Surprisingly, I could never smell it. We went straight home and Kyle helped me lug the back to the garden area. He held the bag with one hand and plugged his nose with the other, because he hasn’t yet learned how to block his sense of smell. I wonder how old you have to be to figure that one out?
In the morning, my husband mixed the horse manure with topsoil and spread it out over the cardboard area and watered it. The cardboard hasn’t noticeably broken down yet. Come on, earthworms!
By Thursday, I swear I could detect the tiniest bit of growth. Certainly the bulbs I rescued from my planting area have sprouted, so if nothing else, I’m enriching our soil and I’ll see a bunch of pretty flowers behind the vegetable area!
Sprouted mystery bulbs! I’m pretty sure they are daffodils.
Fava beans. Don’t they seem just a tiny bit taller?
Kale.
Rosemary.
What the heck. Let’s track the leaves on the birch trees that will eventually close us off from the back neighbor’s house.
