4 month old manure

Ive jost been offered a load of 4 month old horse manure is it safe to dig into my plot now or will it be to fresh if so what can I do with it :nono: only sensible answers please this means you as well Ziggy

 

You can use it if it is rotted enough, at 4 months I doubt it will be. Still, get it to your plot and stack it up for later use and cover with a carpet. You will speed the rotting process by turning it every 6 weeks or so. Aim to be digging it in, in the Autumn.

Steve...

 

manure/ ammonia

Hi,
ref your question about 4 month old horse manure!

It really depends what you want to do with this manure,
Alot of people dont seem to understand how this manure cycle really works so let me explain one or two proven facts and then i feel you'll have a better understanding how and why it depends on what you want to use the manure for.

We're talking here about horse manure, kown as "Hot" manure and the reason its called hot is because the horse manure looks the shape of victoria plums "to put it in a way you'l understand"

with cow is more soggy with no real body to the manure hence this form of manure will not hold the "urine "that is delivered onto the manure,
But the horse "plum shape manure" holds the urine better,

The urine is infact ammonia, and its tha ammonia that feeds the plants roots, the actual plum shape manure is a soil conditioner and helps the soil but as ive said its tha ammonia that feeds the plants roots,

Now if you've no plants in the soil or you want to make a compost heap?
And you put this 4 month old horse manure on the compost heap along with all the other house hold waste thats there then this horse manure will both break down the other waste and it will enrich the compost and when you use this compost on your soil etc it with enrich the soil.

IF you ever want good liquid feed for your crops, its an manure heap thats made and the brown coloured juice that you'll see leaking out of manure in horse stables that this manure is piled up in (on concrete) is the liquid feed that diluted down,
you wont find any composting materials in a correctly made manure heap because its the juices that do the feeding, but all the bulky stuff (plum shape) is then used to improve the soil texure.

Hope this little lot helps you understand a little bit more about manure heaps and compost heaps and what feeds what.

It's worth knowing the difference

 

:D When you stack it, stack it around a bit of drainpipe or simliar, then pull the pipe out leaving an air vent right to the middle of the heap.

 

Hi moonraker If I put 3 inches of this 4 month old horse manure in a raised bed in my polytunnel then cover it with 6 inches of soil could I plant veg on top of this straight away or would the amonia kill the roots / plants

 

I did that with my hotbed last January with fresh horse poo, didn't have any problems, just a nice warm layer of soil in the frames.

Zigswestbayplot

Have a look there

 

Nice one Ziggy that was my intention but in the poly tunnel but I didnt know if the fresh horse manure would kill the seeds / plants so I'll give it a go now all I have to do is talk the wife into digging out the raised bed that will be one taken care of I still have enough poo to do another 10 ft X 8 ft raised bed & the option of going back for as much poo as I want they got about 5 ton next time they are going to take me to the older poo heap that one is about 9 or 10 month old so should be well rotted :yess:

 

Excellent Mick,

The Carrots I planted were Stump root ones, as I didn't want them going as deep as the manure. But the exothermic reaction was over in a few weeks, after that I followed up with PFA spuds which had no problems with the manure.

Been trying to liberate rubble sacks today as i'd like to go get some more fresh poo to do the same.

 

I collected mine in my trailer it made it a lot easier just forking it into the trailer than filling bags I think if I had to fill bags I would'nt have collected as much

 

Yes you can do it that way,
As ive said the ammonia feeds the roots, the problem with having to fresh "horse manure to near the stems /storks of plants is it can damage them "But" it wont damage the root system as its food for the roots, & the roots will go looking for it.

Next time you buy any liquid feed! have a look at whats in the make up and you'll see AMMONIA,

Ive had some really smashing results over the years using the methods i learnt over years of study and practice and one day it was pointed out to me,
we humans are not that much different to the plants we grow, if your eating enough good food, drinking enough "water" and breathing in good clean fresh air, you're going in the right direction and if your strong most of the common illness your body will deal with,

we live in a world we're a lot of people over do the intake of the wrong stuff, and end up looking ill and as has happend to so many top stars etc they find out one day no amount of money will make you healthy if you dont look after yourself and eat the correct things your body needs,

But see how long you can go on feeding the body the wrong stuff????

the heart /liver /lungs will take so much and pack in,

plants are the same, no food, lack of water, bad light, air polluted,
and the ground not made to suit the plants likes ie drowing;

Lime is another much neglected form of very very good feed!

 

Yes it's ammonia and it will burn your plants roots.

When did ammonia become a feed?

Steve

 

4 month old horse manure will be absolutely fine for potatoes. I know from experience that potatoes are fine with horse manure that is so fresh it is still steaming. Might still be a bit too nasty for some other plants though.

As an aside, a few years ago I was researching the idea of developing a wildflower meadow. There were several prohibitively expense options. Then I stumbled across a cheap option that's actually recommended by DEFRA. The idea is that you grow your meadow in a relatively small patch of land, then in autumn you let grazing animals graze the meadow, leaving the gate open between the meadow and the next patch you want to be a meadow. The animals then graze the wildflowers along with grass, wander about, drop their load along with the undigested seeds in another patch of land, and those seeds then germinate and spread the meadow. That wouldn't work if fresh manure destroyed seeds. I guess its slightly different though. Different plants have different tolerances to their immediate surroundings, and I guess also that in the case of the wild flower meadow seed, they probably just lay dormant in the deposits waiting until conditions are right.

I believe the ammonia in urine is ammonium nitrate or nitrite or something like that. I'm not a chemist so I don't fully understand it, but its something to do with reactions that occur in the soil to release nitrogen in the form that plants can use.

 

I use horse poo ,got 4 horses but I compost mine because of the pathogens and seeing I use it mostly in the veg garden I feel its safer to compost it . I do make a manure tea which I spray on the flowers, real simple one just involving a bucket ,sack and stirring stick , add a bit of fish fertilizer to that also if I remember

 

Thanks for the replies guys but Im now totally confused Ziggy used some last year in a cold frame for good results:yess: Steve R says it will burn the roots:nono:. Moonraker says he uses it all the time on certain plants I think.
I dont know what to do maybe I'll do a bit of both (was going to say suck it & see) but yak I think Ill give that one a miss.
so Im going to put some in the bottom of a raised bed covered with 6 inches of soil the rest I think I will compost untill August time then use it every where but does anyone else have any comments on wether to use it fresh or not that is the question come on every one let us know what you think is it YES or NO:grouphug:

 

The big question is, what do you intend to grow in it?

The reason you're getting conflicting advice is because, I think, everyone is trying to give you a general rule of thumb. The trouble is, the general rule of thumb doesn't apply in all cases. Some plants will be absolutely fine with 4 month old manure (potatoes for example), some will hate it.