Brent would invite me to his parents’ home in Southern California every spring and would just happen to be planting his warm season annuals when I arrived. Although I typically just happened to arrive somewhat late, I never missed application of recycled vegetation because Brent typically just happened to have been delayed. The recycled vegetation that we applied as a top dressing immediately after planting annual color or as an amendment to the soil was not actually from a compost pile, but had been recycled through a steer. Incidentally, Brent has never planted so much as a single nasturtium seed in my garden!

Brent preferred to use steer manure as an organic fertilizer to sustain the activity of the rapidly growing, warm season annuals and to replenish previously applied amendments that had partially decomposed during the previous year. Warmer weather during spring enhances microbial activity and consequently accelerates decomposition of organic material within the soil so addition of more is timely. If properly  composted, as any packaged for resale is, steer manure is actually safer than fertilizer because it will not likely cause chemical burn or salt accumulation if applied too generously. However, it does produce a distinctive aroma that, when combined with fish emulsion, resembles that of Alameda in August.

Fish emulsion is of course another organic fertilizer that will not cause any of the rare but potential problems associated with chemical fertilizers, and it is very popular with every cat in the neighborhood. I am not quite certain of what it is composed of, but I can interpolate somewhat from the name; fish emulsion. I believe that it is composed of an emulsion of all the useless scraps of fish generated by evisceration and processing that are not be use for production of French cologne.

Well seasoned household compost may be incorporated into the soil or used a top dressing to improve fertility of the soil without substantially enhancing salt accumulation, similarly to ‘recycled vegetation’. As a top dressing, compost will also inhibit proliferation of weed seedlings. Compost that is not yet adequately seasoned to be used immediately should be ‘turned’ or incorporated into unused seasoned composed to accelerate the composting process. As weather continues to become warmer, composting will be accelerated.