The Sweet Flavor of Manure

[Cole_Robbie]

Last year, I didn't do any soil amendment to my high tunnel beds, just tilled and added chemical fertilizers. The flavor of my tomatoes were weak. I just thought that was an effect of being in a high tunnel.

This year, I went into the cow field in the early spring and scraped up the topsoil around where the cows had been fed big bales of hay. It looked like black dirt. I carried it by the bucket out of the field, a truckload of buckets at a time. Each bed got a thick layer of the stuff that was tilled in.

I ate my first high tunnel tomato of this year, and it is tremendously better-tasting than what I grew last year. If the flavor of a perfect late-summer outdoor garden tomato is a 10, I would rate the tomato I ate today at a 9. Last year was more like a 5. And sixty days after planting, my plants are seven feet tall and loaded with fruit.

Fittingly enough, one of our cows is named Sugar. She makes sweet flavor indeed