Tom Kozak

A question about bedding,
I have 5 hens. They live in the coop and run, 8 ish months of the year, on deep litter which I have been cleaning out once a year in the fall and putting directly on the garden.  In the winter the hens live in the greenhouse, Again on deep litter.  In the spring I clean 80% or so of the litter out of the greenhouse and use it to mulch raspberries or fruit trees or other perennials and plant directly into what remains.
This has been working for 18 months now and all seems well.  My question is, should I be worried about a buildup of ammonia or pathogens or something?  Should I add an additional compost step?

Thanks for the replies!
Yes, do indeed meen suckers from the roots.  So it sounds like I should dig around the spot I want a sucker and hope to hit a root.  Hopefully that will give me a sucker that in a few years I can graft to.
The second part of this question.  Is this a good idea?  Are there disadvantages to having two or more trees sharing the same roots?

Is it possible to encorage a tree to send up suckers in a chosen spot?

There is an apple tree in my yard which not only suckers next to the main trunk but also in several places a meter or so away from the trunk.  One such is in a spot where I was planning to plant a tree anyway, so now I can just graft to the sucker and save myself some time and money!

I'd like another tree about the same distance on the opposite side of the old tree, but there are no natural suckers there.  The old tree suckers quite strongly in undesirable spots.  Is there some way I could encorage it to sucker in the desired one?

Maybe you could prune the tree agressivly and graft somthing more suitable onto whatever is lefties?  
It looks like grafting to carrotwood is not the easiest thing in the world but maybe you can both keep the the original tree and have a new one.
See this link  
https://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=8209.0
It

Thanks for the quick  Replies!  

It's been really cold here lately. So cold my car, no I did not plug in the block heater, died.  I got a jump and all well, this time.  But that got me thinking, since the car battery is a 12V and my lawn mower runs on 12 V batteries (3 of them).  Would one of those be able to jump the car?

Does anyone out there have any experience making their own wooden shoes? bonus points if you are a hobbies doing it at home with common tools.

This garden system was developed in Ireland, a very different climate than mine (Sudbury Ontario Canada) but it contains crops I already grow.  I'm interested in trying to recreate it.  Thoughts?

 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Product-Service/Meekers-Magic-Mix-125344670878677/

they ad sawdust\woodchips to fish manure, let it sit for a while, bag it and sell it. there are probably more steps than that, all I know is the more Meekers I use the closer my garden gets to Eden!

What is your favorite method for trellising tomatoes/squash/melons etc?  (specifically, in the hoophouse)