Gin trash

[daddylove306]

I have 3 raised beds 12 inches deep and are completely filled with gin trash, and I never have to fertilize and very rarely have to water. I was just curious if anyone else did this.

[rocan]

Sorry if I'm a little slow, but what is "gin trash"? Just wondering.

[daddylove306]

All of the waste products that come from ginning cotton. Cotton gins produce tons of it each year and it is extremely fertile once it ages for a year of so.

[rocan]

Okay thanks. I know what gin is and I know what trash is,but had not heard that term before (I'm pretty far north of cotton country).

[b54red]

We tried to get some the past couple of years but all the gins around here return it to the farmers. I assume they spread it back on their fields.

[tuk50]

When I was a kid my family used it on all of our gardens (we called it gin trailings) in Oklahoma, even slid down the piles on cardboard sleds just for fun.. I now live and have for about 40years in Arizona and Pima cotton is a big crop here.. I tried a few years ago to get some trailings from a local gin and they wouldn't give it to me... they said all the cotton here uses herbicides now to drop the leaves so the mechanized harvesters can strip the bolls off the stalks... so I got a bag full of seeds from one of the fields and just grow it as a green manure crop in my garden. Each year I save enough seed to plant the next year. I do buy 50lb bags of cottonseed meal from a local feed store and use it in rows when I plant vegetables .. its about 7-2-2 and doesn't burn, in my heat.

[daddylove306]

We use all the same herbicides on our cotton here and I have absolutely no problems using the gin trash. The herbicides obviously don't carry over, it is common practice around here to use gin trash because our dirt is so sandy.