Planting a Vineyard Part 12: A Brief History of Manure

A winemaker, on his way to ultimate happiness (read: a corked bottle of wine), must make several hundred important decisions that will, to a greater or lesser extent, influence the final shape and quality of the desired product.

Not all decisions are easy, in the style of “this is good and this is bad,” or more along the lines of “this is generally good, but not here,” and “this is bad,” but in your case, it might turn out to be good… or bad. To make matters even more confusing, each of the winemakers interviewed has different experiences, and therefore different opinions. Add to this the fact that the decision has to be made anyway, because Mother Nature waits for no one, and suddenly the entire process of establishing a vineyard is not much different from seeking adventure in a casino.

That’s how it is now – for a week now, I’ve been dreaming, eating, and digesting manure, and it’s certainly not my own. In the spring soil recommendations, the gentleman from the agricultural center suggests artificial or organic fertilizer. We’re not planning organic farming (which in itself was the subject of a debate and one of those binding decisions). Nevertheless, if I have a choice, I’m a firm believer in natural resources because, as we know, what you put in the soil, sooner or later, you put in your stomach.

So we instinctively chose natural fertilizer, but instead of locking the door and pocketing the key, it immediately turns out that this decision is just the starting point for a series of other choices. What kind of manure? Bird manure, cow manure, horse manure, or perhaps chicken manure? Fresh or composted? And where can I find it? How should I load and transport it? Should I store it and how, or should I spread it straight away, but with what? And most importantly, how much will it all cost?

I’m getting to grips with the subject and quickly begin to understand that all it takes is one weak link in this chain of events, and the whole thing will collapse like a house of rotten cards. I quickly learn that the worst is cow manure, despite the friendly personification of the cow itself. The best, however, is bird manure, but you have to be careful with that too, because it contains so much nitrogen that, like an angry dog ​​or an unfulfilled woman, it can chew through anything in its path.

Horse manure, or male manure, is, as everyone knows, more fertile but altogether more gentle, and that’s what we decide to use. So I pick up the phone and call stud farms near Krakow. Here I discover a free American offer: one wants 150 złoty per ton, another 40 złoty, and still another will give me free, even as much as I need.

However, my joy is short-lived, as I learn that the manure I need—God forbid—can’t be fresh, only composted. Composted manure needs to marinate for at least six months. Unfortunately, no stable, especially the one that wants to give me horse manure, is interested in storing it, only in dusting it on an ongoing basis. As we all know, a horse won’t go on strike and will sooner or later raise its tail.

I quickly think of transporting the manure and storing it on the plot until spring, but that’s also a bummer, because if left exposed to the air, the mulch loses too much nitrogen and other trace elements. To prevent this, the agricultural center suggests covering the manure pile with a layer of soil, something like a giant mud hut. At best, the locals will interpret this as evidence of a UFO, and at worst, I’ll get a report for building without a permit. It’s not practical, so it’s out.

In moments of desperation, I still consider storing the recently abundant Helenka deposits in the backyard garbage can, but after a quick calculation, I realize I’d need the processing capacity of an entire nursery, not to mention the backyard clogged with blue bins and desperately defending them from the guys from the Municipal Police. That’s out of the question too.

Hoping to find some composted manure, I’m also delving into the subject of transportation. It seems to me that locating and even stepping on horse manure is one thing, but transporting it, even tons of it, is a completely different story. I’m learning that transport companies usually charge per trip, so naturally, I need to find a truck that makes as few trips as possible.

I’m researching the topic and discovering that there are these road mutants, they call them frying pans—huge dump trucks carrying up to 25 tons of road materials, usually sand or stone. I pick up the phone again; there’s a porphyry mine near Rybna. I mistakenly call the wrong department, but it doesn’t matter. I explain that I know they’re not a transport company, but that their frying pans are already giving me nightmares, and since they’re next door, wouldn’t they be doing a great service, at least on a district scale?

The lady hesitantly denies it but gives me another phone call to try, I presume to the mine owner, where a pleasant male voice replies that it’s no problem, they’ll lend me a frying pan and it would be best if I could also get him some manure, only fresh, as he has a small field and would be happy to spread it there himself.

So, on Friday, I’m going to the stud farm with a cunning plan to persuade the owner to set aside a hundred tons of mulch, in exchange for which I’ll arrange for him to collect the fresh manure, which is currently troubling him at night because the mushroom farmers who usually collect it had some kind of breakdown, and the pile of treasures now sits unsolicited. Meanwhile, from the mine owner, whose fragrant manure will be so valuable to next year’s harvest, I’ll be asking for a symbolic sum for four pans, or a hundred tons of processed mulch. And who’s to say that the issue of horse guano isn’t a delicate matter indeed?