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manure

Hi everybody on this wet ,windy miserable day in Tenby Wales,allottment on the hill was blowing a gale and very cold socame home and  watching the Ironman runners going passed the window and they look cold,anyway iv got my raised beds all dug and weeded and covered in old carpets now i have some good manure to put either in or on ,question is this, im not planting till after Christmas so do i drop the manure on top and leave open,or drop it on top and cover again or digit in now  and cover or not  im just not shure which is best any advice is good   good luck all

alan4711

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Posts

  • As long as the manure is well rotted crumbly and sweet smelling then spread it on the beds and lightly cover it.
    Save some and put it in the bottom of the potato trenches in spring to give them a good start.
    Sweet peas like some good manure under them when planted out but some Peas and Beans make their own Nitrogen so do not need manure. Cabbages will need some lime rather than manure so depends on what you intend to plant.
    You could cover it and wait until spring then spread it where needed.

    Frank.

  • Frank, is it okay to put fresh horse poo straight on the garden where nothing will be planted 'til spring? No straw or anything in just straight from the field.

  • Pam no it is not OK, mix it with your compost making sure it is well dug in and leave. Raw it will burn your plants and as the horse does not have good digestion it will be full of seeds that will grow like mad in your nice fresh soil.
    I use it off my Sons heap after it has matured for a couple of years.

    Frank.

  • Thanks, Frank. I'll do as you say.

  • Palaisglide what is your son eating?

  • keiths lemon wrote (see)

    Palaisglide what is your son eating?

    Horse pies with the shoes still on.

    Frank.

  • I hear that they were popular during the war.

  • Peat BPeat B Posts: 441

    If horses have a non-conducive digestive system for manure heaps, and weeds grow in the soil from therewithin, why is it recommended to use fresh horse muck for hot beds ??? All these different opinions seem to cancel each other out .

  • figratfigrat Posts: 1,619
    It's the heat generated by the decomposing fresh manure which makes the hot bed work. The fresh manure is covered by 20-30cm of planting medium, and when it's all done its thing, the manure is removed to completely rot down before being applied to open ground.
  • Peat Ballan wrote (see)

    If horses have a non-conducive digestive system for manure heaps, and weeds grow in the soil from therewithin, why is it recommended to use fresh horse muck for hot beds ??? All these different opinions seem to cancel each other out .

    Good question, why use fresh manure.
    Our hot beds were a wooden box made by my Father into which would go straw then a good layer of fresh manure more straw and a good covering of soil.
    The heat caused by the reaction of the fresh manure would raise the temperature of the soil into which we could plant those items needing some root warmth to grow, Dad would grow a melon on the hot bed a luxury when I was a kid.
    ON the farm where there was a heap of organic or animal waste mainly horse dung a hole would be dug in the steaming pile some soil shovelled in and a plant put in to grow on the rising warmth helping the plant.
    At the end of its use the whole box was emptied straw and all onto the compost, we had a large brick midden full of the stuff, my job was to fork it over now and then and then the now mature horse manure would go in the base of the potato trenches or be spread on the soil as it was dug over.
    There were no organic fertilisers for gardeners back then and electric cable warming boxes with thermostat which I have now would have been beyond the reach of gardeners, forever putting a penny in the meter.
    Boxes of seed or seedlings could be put on the hot bed to give some bottom heat, a couple of batons across the top with the boxes on the batons would raise them so it was not too warm for some plants.
    Any seed in the mix would be killed by the rising heat and smothered by the straw.
    Frank.

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