Anne Reuter

It was mixed with I think wood chips bedding.. I don't think they cleaned the stall out on a regular basis.. so I would say that some of that stuff was even older than 3 month.
Thank you so much for your reply.. it really helps a lot.. I will have my husband hall me in a truck load of soil and put that down and mix it up with as much compost as I can find. Sadly I am surrounded by non organic farmers where I live and COMPOST is a word from another planet. So until my compost is producing, I will have to make due with some bagged compost from a garden store.
Well, and I am attempting to grow some stuff in a square foot garden on my porch as well.. so I will just experiment with it this summer and see what happens and learn.
Maybe I post an update in a couple of month!
Anne

Thanks so much for your welcome and your advice!
I am calling it sheet mulching like Toby Hemenway in Gaia's Garden. That's the book I got the idea from.

I put everything down last weekend.

chicken poop
newspaper
chicken poop
veggie scraps
straw

The chicken poop is coming from my father in laws chickens that he had in his barn. The poop is, well 3 month old.. and all dried up.

I am looking for compost everywhere.. but it seems like, nobody is doing this around here. And my compost I just started, is not ready for a while. So I might just have to opt for
some soil that is sitting out for a couple of years at a friends concrete business.

Or I thought about buying a couple of compost bags at our Garden store and just do these pockets.

Somebody else told me to let the sheet mulch sit till the end of may and than start planting in it and I might be fine!
What you think??

We are expecting a lot of rain this week and warmer temperatures after the weekend. I was hoping that this would get things going in there, so it will dilute and break down a little.

Alright, I am from Iowa and super new to Permaculture and super excited about it.. so much that my husband and family got a little scared when I told them how I am planning on sheet mulching. But I did it anyways.. And now after all the things I had to listen to, I got a little scared about planting in it right away and burning all my plants cause of the chicken poop that I added.

Here my sheet mulch for 200 square feet of vegetable garden:

organic matter (veggie scraps)
a 5 gallon bucket of chicken poop, sprinkled on

newspaper and cardboard

a 2.5 gallon bucket of chicken poop sprinkled on
some veggie scraps, egg shells

two bails of straw

The thing is that I wanna plant in it within the next month.. so now I am debating on whether or not it was a good idea to add chicken poop, cause I don't wanna burn the plants.

And I am also debating on now just adding topsoil and how many inches and to top it off with straw.
Or if I should also add another layer of horse poop??

Maybe somebody could help me with all my questions!?