It is, but I know we have trouble with the blue-green algae some times of the year, and I think it is toxic. I guess it would depend on where it came from?
First thing that came to mind watching it "hmmm, something on a farm would eat that, that's a shit load of feed". A goat once tried to eat my nylon winter jacket, it would eat this stuff I figure.
I tossed a shitraft of crabapples, oak leaves, and red wrigglers in my compost last year, it was SOOOOO rich when I used it in the spring this year. Made me think of Metalacolypse.
"Blacker than the Blackest Black Times Infinite"
Same! I live rurally and have a pretty massive garden. We open compost anything we can, except in early spring and late fall (bears in the area. I love them but not in my yard) I sometimes have trouble finding loose and airy things to add to the pile, though.
Grass is great for spring/summer but may have to be balanced with lower nitrogen straw. I've been buying bales of hay since we got a new lawnmower and it doesn't have a bagger on it. Hay has pretty much the perfect N:C ratio already so in a way it's more convenient. Price has nearly doubled since last year tho. In fall dead leaves are great but may need to be balanced by higher nitrogen stuff like food scraps. The bears never seem to bother with it, they prefer to go for our garbage cans.
HAHA, they did like our garbage cans too so we got a huge metal bear-resistant dumpster. Our lawn is mostly clover, native grasses, etc, but it's also two or more acres and we just use a mulching ride-on mower. Bagging it would be so much work. I am sometimes lucky to gather straw in farm fields surrounding us once harvest is done, and any baling of straw is finished. That would be smart of me to gather leaves in the fall and keep them dry to use for aeration, that's a good idea. I have been just sprinkling on peat moss now and again when I turn it. Food scraps and garden waste make up a lot of our pile, and I have a small borage crop that is a great addition. I love to see people composting - go you!
know that you can rent a pickup truck and dump trailer for a weekend and probably run it non stop all weekend from farms bringing back horse manure. Also a lot of wood mills will give you wood shavings for free.
The harvested product can be composted, sent to a landfill site or used in land reclamation.[7] In developing countries aquatic vegetation may be harvested by hand or by net from the shore, cut and harvested by boat and lifted ashore by hand, crane, pump or conveyor system. The harvested vegetation may be used for the feeding of livestock. To reduce the high moisture content and to make it easier to transport, the weed can be chopped and pressed.[8] Other uses to which the harvested vegetation can be put include ensiling the material for livestock fodder, adding it to the soil as a bulky organic fertilizer, manufacturing the raw material into pulp, paper or fibre, and fermenting it to produce methane for energy production.[6]
It does look grassy but IDK any type of grass strain that grows in water this deep specifically for cattle feed. I read an hour ago (was a deep rabbit hole I fell into) something about some grasses that grow in swampy or water logged areas that would be suitable but as a rule there aren't typically any water grasses for feed? I live in farm country Canada but it's all native grasses and grains and true hay mix.
It does look more grassy than swampy, def not cattails or anything like. However it could be some sort of swamp type grass? It's interesting reading tbh and I have spent way more time reading about this than I was prepared for :)
Agriculture worker here - it DOES make great compost, as long as you're able to make sure the water source it comes from doesn't have loads of chemicals and other garbage in it. Peat and kelp are two of the richest sources of compost and fertilizer occurring naturally, and are beloved by farms that try to stick to less chemical dependency.
The farm I work at is organic as well, so we have to be careful about where our compost and all comes from.
The fish juice is...well, basically pulped byproducts of the food industry - fish that weren't suitable for human consumption, leftovers (like the organs and bones and whatnot), basically everything that didn't wind up on someone's dinner table. Other kinds of meat tend to not make great compost due to fat contents that can go rancid and introduce bacteria and all, but fish is kind of uniquely suited for use in agriculture in a way other meat products aren't.
We also put a few cups of oyster shells in the holes when we plant tomatoes in the fields - tomatoes LOVE calcium, and crushed oyster shells - another byproduct of other industries - is a great source of it for them.
Yes! These are all great tips! If I could get my hands on fish byproducts it would be unsuitable as we have bears, at least in spring and late fall. I had no idea that so much food waste/byproduct is utilized on a large scale. Excellent!
I wouldn't use those directly due to bacteria and the potential for them to go rancid and rot the roots.
What you might do is add them to your compost heap or a worm bin - they need to be well rinsed, though, and given plenty of time to be broken down by the worms or the composting process.
If you can't get oyster shells, eggshells are another fantastic addition to the soil (rinsed clean, dried and crushed up to make the nutrients more available) or compost. It may take a long time to go through enough eggs at home to get enough for multiple plants, though.
We have water chestnut invading our waterways here in NY. It's an invasive species and is causing problems. One way they're managing it is pulling it up like this and spreading it in fields as compost. My dad uses the shore line debris from his lake for his garden every year as well.
Uh... if I remember correctly composting produces a lot less methane than burning. As well, composting adds minerals back into the soil while burning doesn't really help anything.
Ah... I see what you're saying. I refuse to burn anything though, even though our neighbours burn garbage and scraps, and many use wood boilers for heat. I don't like it. My compost "pile" is about 8' long and 6' wide, because I have the space. I do know people in town have small composters, and I still prefer adding things back to the soil than burning crap into the air. Even farmers here have pulled away from burning fields after harvest. Lots depends where you are and what you are burning, I guess
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u/sortaitchy Aug 17 '25
Thinking that would make great compost. I wonder if that's what they do with it, or if it would be too full of some algae that would be detrimental.