Before I left my son and his family’s home in northern Wisconsin today I finished, with the help of the dairy farmer across the road, building two mounds to transform compost of cow dung, straw, and wood shavings into worm castings. So the new adventure of changing manure into rich soil, sometimes called ‘black gold’, has begun.

I will document this project on a new web page called cow dung to worm castings and energy. If successful it will bring the farmer and urban gardener together. It is an old low-tech idea that offers great hope for the future of Growing Renewable Affordable Food (G.R.A.F.).

These two mounds have layers of saw dust and old compost topped by a big pile of manure fresh this winter, more saw dust, and old compost with worms added and then covered with a load of bedding material, straw, saw dust, from a calf’s hut. Burlap covers part of the two mounds.

This cow manure is rich since dairy cows are fed a healthy died of alfalfa hay, corn silage, and protein mix including soybeans. This rich manure, when consumed and cast off by worms, will be valuable to growing natural and healthy food.

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