TWO 55 gallons drums of REALLY rotten unsalted herring!!!

[planter]

A friend on mine who is a lobsterman by trade has TWO sealed barrels of herring to badly rotted to even put in a bait bag in his lobster traps.
When I say this stuff is rotten I mean it is ROTTEN!!! It is bearly discerable as ever having been fish and is almost gelatinous. You just can't imagine.

My is should I have him drop them off and what could I possible do with them? I know the stuff is gold but I think I would have to bury it in a large trench covered in a foot of dirt just to keep the stink in nand I just can't dig that Big-O-Hole!!

I already use a lot of fish skins and racks in my heaps and even put two Dogfish at the bottom of a hole this week. I just put half a sheet of plywood over them for a couple of weeks. I get home from work and there are fish parts in my driveway.

The neighbors I can live with but the Mrs. might have a problem.

[rkunsaw]

If I had them I would spread them over my garden,cover with grass clippings and till it in,then cover with grass clippings again.The knot on your head your wife gives you will go away in time.
Larry

[applestar]

I think, in theory, high carbon shredded brush/wood chips or dry wood shavings and sawdust should balance the super N and help to tone down the odor. Maybe trench compost under paths and just beyond drip lines.

What you describe sounds like what we buy in little bottles -- called fish emulsion -- doesn't it? I think I mix a capful to a GALLON of water... Do these drums have a spigot or will you have to open up the can to get any out?

[planter]

These drums are something to be afraid of!! They have NO spigot and once the lids off think of them as Pandora's Box. I guess it's as close to fish emulsion as you can get but with lots of unidentifiable lumps..

I may take the drums but I still don't know what I'm gonna do with them. If it was spring or even later in the fall I might till them in somewhere. I can get very cheap but dirty rather than clean wood chips so maybe I will get six yards dumped and pour a barrel on it and then cover it with another six yards and maybe a couple off hundred pounds of powdered lime.

Trenching would work but even moving these things around is dangerous and the digging is just so hard. I guess I could always just dig DEEP holes and cover them back up with dirt and compost and consider them spots for future tree's.. Sure would "SWEETEN" up things..

PS... The Yotes have claimed all the cats here and even cats would not eat this stuff. The coons might but I doubt the foxes and yotes would even go near it.

[gumbo2176]

Many, many years ago a friend of mine went fishing for speckled trout. This was a time before there was a limit on catches and he came back home with three 48 quart ice chests full of fish. He filleted the fish saving only the meat for his freezer and buried the remainder of the catch in his garden. The amount probably was no more than the contents of one 48 quart chest full. Long story short-----his dog dug this stuff up 3 days later and the smell was putrid at best and he just about washed the hair off of her to get the smell out of her coat.

I can't imagine how two 55 gal. drums of this stuff in that condition smells. I hope you have very understanding neighbors or at least ones that benefit from your garden and will understand your reasoning for the stench you are going to dump in your plot.

[planter]

I am taking the barrels!! It's to much gold to pass on.

For now I am just gonna use the two wheeler to get them out into the woods a bit and worry about usage later like next this fall or next spring.

GUMBO...I gotta live with the neighbors and their Chemlawn and Truegreen trucks rolling in all the time as well as the stink of toxics so maybe I should let them smell it.

[specgrade]

Do you have any pictures of the stuff?

[planter]

Pics of the barrels I can get.. I am not however willing to open one of these guys to check out the contents. I do know however that it is unsalted herring that has been in a sealed drum for four months at LEAST.. I won't crack the seals until I get them in the yard and figure what the heck to do with them...

I'm afraid of the stuff so I went and picked up 3 nice big fish totes of seaweed today instead... A really good rinse and then onto a big piece of elevator netting to flip rinse and dry a few times.. Then I will figure out what to do with that. It sure holds water well in a hole though. It's like that odd geletin stuff you buy to retain water in plants...

[gumbo2176]

[quote="planter"]I am taking the barrels!! It's to much gold to pass on.

For now I am just gonna use the two wheeler to get them out into the woods a bit and worry about usage later like next this fall or next spring.



I can see it now. One barrel decides to spring a small leak and nosy neighbors seeing 2 sealed barrels on your property call the authorities.

Cut to Planter facing the on scene news camera claiming "It's just fish!!" while his property is swarmed by a team of "Crime Scene Forensic" investigators thinking they have caught up with a serial killer.

Man, I hope you have a real strong stomach when you do decide to open those barrels and spread the stuff. I've been around rotted fish before and it is nothing nice.

[planter]

I've worked gill netting, dragging as well as bugging and I LIKE the smell "usually". I like the smell of low tide and dairy farms as well but this stuff could be dangerous but we KNOW it's good for sumpin!!

Still trying to figure out how I'm gonna work with it. I still say it's gold that just needs to be refined!!

[applestar]

A frosty, dry day and a steady inland breeze blowing out to the sea....

[gumbo2176]

Planter, here's an idea. Get some heavy plastic, enough to make some sort of trough on the ground, wait till you have a couple days of below freezing weather and dump the liquid gold in the trough. After it freezes, break it up in manageable pieces and plant it in the garden before it defrosts.

I'd give that a shot before scooping it straight from the drum while in a liquid state.

[The Helpful Gardener]

We know we have anaerobic decomposition going on already (if it stinks, it's anaerobic). You don't want to start spreading it around like that just yet... (I once ok'd the treatment of a college campus with some fish emulsion that was a little south of good and actually closed down the campus! They stopped classes and sent everyone home! )

I think you need to go with anaerobic for a while. I was thinking EM to knock the stink out of it (what I eventually used at the campus to keep the smell out of the fish). It will help finish the decomposition and reduce the odor; they use it to knock down the stink in pig manure lagoons. If it will do that it will do anything...

I like the trench composting idea: lots of wood chips or shavings, paper, etc. AS's high carbon is not just theory, it's the way. Then Fish, then EM, then a cap (soil from the trench). Som lime wouldn't hurt to balance the pH some... As a start to a hugelkultur bed it would be fantastic; some logs at the bottom of the pit, then brushspray on fish, then EM, then the cap... IN a few years you will have an awsome bed for planting...

HG

[planter]

Thats actually NOT a bad idea Gumbo!! The only draw back is my pal wants his barrels back which is too bad cause they are great heavy duty containers.

My last home was all aluvial soil except for the topsoil and I could dig a six foot grave in about an hour without finding a stone bigger than a golf ball. I was able to bury my road killed cat five feet under as a gesture of my fondness for the beast.. Of course I planted something over her but if your gonna dig you may as well plant. A "Briggs Moonlight Daphne" if I remember correctly but the digging here will kill a gardener.

Send me your addy Gumbo and I will send you out a gallon!!

Missed your post HG.. What's EM?? I do have a low spot in the back 40 so maybe I will put a berm at one end and just dump the stuff in and cover with dirty wood chips and cap it with soil. It will be great after a season or two but I want this stuff in the worst way and frankly I'm NOT really worried about the critters as I think even the coons would be afraid of this grey milky slurry of goodness.

[The Helpful Gardener]

EM is Effective Microbes; a site search will uncover reams of info...

Good stuff!

HG

[planter]

TY HG! I will check it out.

[planter]

HG!! Your killing me! I've always been happy with a pile of leaves, grass and Doo in the backyard. The bigger the better. I even liked to brew up a pot of tea now and then and figured if it rotted it was good for my garden and it's always proven to be "pretty" much true..

Then I come her and it's ACT, and EM, and Bokashi and on and on!! If I spend all my time reading up on that stuff whose gonna dig my holes and push the barrow

I gotta chat with this Toil person as he/she sounds like a real font of knowledge but first I need to work on some updates to what I have considered basic after 35 years of digging.

Their had better be some EMPIRICAL basis to this stuff.

OT for sure but...

[The Helpful Gardener]

Check out the book club threads for [url=https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=43]Teaming With Microbes[/url], in particular [url=https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24100]this thread[/url]... Empirical as all get-out...

I think you'll see I consider all the tools in the toolbox, but try to open the toolbox only when I really need it. I don't like hammers unless there are nails and I think there is a tendency to utilize technology because it's seems better than doing nothing and you can overuse any tool. I'm way good with hoes and barrows and "Doo in the backyard", but extremes call for very specific tools. This is DEFINITELY one of those times...

HG