that good sh*t
I used to consider myself a “fashionista”. Perhaps not in the true sense of the word, but I did enjoy consignment bargains and boutique shopping. However, since starting Ritual Blooms I have spent more money on poop, than all my other clothing purchases combined. In my early 20’s if a psychic would have looked at their crystal ball and told me that I would be the happiest I’ve ever been moving piles of poo from one location to another I would have given them a scathing yelp review, and called my bank to report a chargeback.
In the past 6 months, I have spent over $1,500 on cow patties. In the farming world, we give it the more dignified title of manure, but there is no denying that on delivery day (and for weeks after) the whole farm smells like doo-doo.
Surprised at how much feces costs? I was too. I was also surprised at how much #2 I needed to have a successful growing season, year 1. (25 yards to be exact….now that’s a big pile of midden!) Believe it or not, covering your beds in ordure is a huge risk for organic farmers. Mostly because the dung is collected from multiple farms which makes it impossible to know where all the muck, we receive, is coming from. Since it is standard, industrial farming practice to increase hay and straw yields with pesticides and chemical fertilizers…they spray their crops, which get eaten by the livestock, and the compounds come out still activated in their excrement. The animal scat is then sold to local nurseries, and purchased by other farmers, like us, as an “organic” alternative to chemical fertilizer. As I spread it on my flower beds, I knew I was “betting the house”. If the balance of the stool had too much leftover glyphosate, not a single one of my flowers would grow. Furthermore, I would have needed to leave those flower beds fallow for 3-5 YEARS!!!!….which is long enough for the poison to leach out of the soil, or at the very least, not affect my seedlings. Luckily this chemical crap shoot turned out in my favor, and I can gleefully report it is the “black gold” everyone claims it to be. There is no way my heavy clay soil would have been as productive as it was if I didn’t win the world’s sh*tiest coin toss.
(also, just in case you are wondering… there are still a lot more ways to say the word poop :0)
