YOO & THE CITY: For gardeners, horse manure is gold

This article was originally published on 3/29/2007

It’s a law of science —- what goes in must come out.

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Kathy Shoemaker sits in her truck as Edgar Sabala fills the pickup bed with horse manure for use on her flower garden during the Little Creek Farm Conservancy’s big sale on Saturday.

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Motorists line up to buy manure at the Little Creek Horse Farm. Gardening expert Walter Reeves was a celebrity guest at the sale, where a hefty bag of manure cost $5 and a pickup truck load $25.

This universal truth was on display last weekend when a group of horse lovers held a big manure sale to raise money for a stable off Lawrenceville Highway.

The organizer, the Little Creek Farm Conservancy, offers riding lessons at the Little Creek Farm, a 40-acre piece of unexpected greenery across from North DeKalb Mall. The group held a similar sale in 2006. Aggressive advertising this year apparently paid off.

Pickup trucks lined up to get a load of dung. Those who entered had to sign a waiver form in case they slipped on you-know-what.

The rules were simple. You were given a shovel and a bag. And you bagged your own. (Volunteers helped shovel, too.) A filled bag that could easily weigh about 80 pounds went for a mere $5.

You could get a lot more —- a truckload —- for $25. Two bulldozers were present. One machine ceaselessly dumped a large scoop, then a second and a third, into the pickups.

Proceeds from the sale go toward purchasing fly predators that eat fly larvae. Flies flourish around horses and sometimes nest and lay eggs on horse wounds. The biological repellent costs $1,000. The conservancy volunteers probably made a lot more than that selling at least 500 bags and who-knows-how-many truckloads.

Good manure is worth every drop.

“If you buy at Home Depot, it’s not like the quality of this, ” said Linda Wright-Deaguero, who works for CDC and brought her husband’s Tacoma truck.

The 45 horses that live at the stable manufacture the main ingredient for the weekend sale. That substance is then mixed with wood chips.

A mountain of the coveted stuff was stacked on a corner of the farm, like nuggets from a coal mine.

“You see how rich it is. Some people call it ‘black gold, ’ ” said Wendy Bowen, the lead organizer for the sale.

The “black gold” was as dark as Belgian truffles and as brittle as gunpowder. It sparkled. It steamed, too, a cloud of dust consisting mainly of ammonia.

Its smell was reminiscent of a forgotten era —- something pastoral, a summer in Vermont.

Janice Yamini, 65, of Decatur and her neighbor bought four bags on Saturday. Yamini will use hers on the squash, greens, tomatoes, beans and tomatoes growing in her backyard.

“They taste so much better, ” she said.

Also on hand was local gardening deity Walter Reeves. His radio show has produced a large following. Women were asking him to sign their shirts.

Reeves offered obscure insights on such subjects as the intimate ecology of manure and earthworms. The worms seek shelter in the dung and dig holes in the soil, an act ultimately beneficial to plant roots.

Dung has a long history of doing good for humanity. The French and Asian Indians used it to light fires and cook food. So, too, did prospectors during the Gold Rush. On the Oregon Trail, families would pick up “buffalo chips” for firewood, according to the U.S. National Park Service.

But don’t try using dog or cat dung. Because of hundreds of years of domestication, they carry diseases that humans can contract. Along the same line, pig dung is out too.

Which leads to another universal truth: All dung is not created equal.