Garden Outhouse

Ashes from the wood stove is a good source of lime to sprinkle into the hole of the outhouse. Also to keep up the bacterial action, add the occasional left over vegetable wastes, especially cooked cabbage but no meats. Treat it like a compost pile. With a household of six, I never had a smelly outhouse.

During the warmer months, we dug shallow holes about 3 feet deep and layered the human waste often with the ashes, food scraps and chopped moldy hay from the barn. When the hole was about a foot from the top, we dug a hole next to it, piling the dirt from the second hole over the first one, and so on down the line. Moving the light weight shack over the new hole. The last hole before the ground froze in winter was dug deeper. (It had to last until the ground thawed the following Spring). The next year I had several piles on which I planted my squashes. The "Rich" subsoil grew fantastic squash with clear plastic tents over the top. An almost unheard of accomplishment at an Elevation of 5500 ft. above sea level and a real short growing season.

Offered by Cat.