HOW TO MAKE COW MANURE...WITHOUT A COW!

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Which explains why the spring of 1977 found me dumping various combinations of torn-up weeds, grass clippings, shredded leaves, comfrey cuttings, chopped kudzu vines, artichoke and other vegetable clippings, etc., into a selection of large plastic garbage bags . . . which I then tied shut and left lying out in the hot sun to "cook".

Most of the mixtures of freshly cut organic matter contained enough natural juice to "heat up" and begin decomposing "as is". One bag (of grass clippings and shredded leaves), however, seemed a little too dry to start this natural action on its own, so I added a half-gallon of water.

I opened the sealed bags (all tagged for reference) every three days to check on the amount of methane that each "recipe" was producing. As expected, some formulas created more gas than others. So far, so good.

And then, a few days into the test, I began to notice something that I hadn't anticipated: The decomposing mass in most of the black plastic garbage sacks was beginning to turn into something

which strongly resembled horse or cattle manure ... including a certain amount of their characteristic smells.

To be more specific: Nine days after the experiment began, the contents of the opened bags exhibited a noticeable "silage" or "pickle acid" odor. One day later a distinct smell—not bad . . . but unfamiliar, musty, and vinegary—could be detected a full 50 feet from the sealed sacks. This aroma then slowly lost its potency as the various mixtures of decaying matter decomposed. By the time the test had run 21 to 30 days (depending on the recipe), all odors—from either the tied or opened bags—had completely disappeared.

At the end of the 21- to 30-day "cooking" period, the following results were noted: The bag of dry grass clippings and shredded leaves (which had been wet down enough to start a decaying action) had turned into a fairly conventional-looking compost. The sackfuls of naturally semi-moist organic material, on the other hand, resembled nothing so much as horse manure . . . and the really juicy formulations looked more like fresh cow manure than some real fresh cow manure I've seen!

This was so unexpected that I immediately duplicated the experiment several times . . . always with the same result. And, although I can't claim that my tests have been scientifically controlled in any way, I am sure of one thing: If you shred or chop or grind a mixture of weeds, grass clippings, comfrey (a member of the borage family often used for animal forage), kudzu (the fast-growing vine that has "taken over" parts of the rural South), a few artichoke plants, and any other naturally juicy "waste" vegetation you have on hand . . . add extra moisture if necessary . . . tie it all up in an airtight plastic garbage bag . . . and leave it lying out in the hot sun for a month . . . you'll wind up with a dead ringer for what the cows leave behind in the pasture.

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