Fresh manure trials

Evening All,
I did reply to a question yesterday ref "Can i use fresh horse manure" and i said yes,

I went on to say that ive used manure in this way for a long time now.

One or two members came in on this topic with No you should never use fresh manure as the ammonia is to strong etc .

Gardeners world magazine date febuary 2012 page105 reply to the question "do all veg benefit from added manure.

Now for those who do not buy or read this gardening bible the reply given says test have proved that the old idea's of using fresh manure caused root veg ie carrots/parsnip/ to fork as not true,

it continues to say that autumn is the best time to use manure on the earth as the soil settles down before planting.

I'd like to ask the people who feel the rain washes away the good parts of the manure, What if your trying to improve clay? Is'nt the wilds of the winter what causes the clay to break down & without humus (manure) the clay will set concrete hard as soon as the sun appears again and your back to the starting gate with nothing else but solid clay.
Are you telling me the rain will just soak away and manure will stop doing its work?

As ive said ive used "Horse manure" as a top dressing for years during the winter and come april i tilth it into the rose beds and the topiary bed and ive not had any problems there, I also have circles around all my fruit trees in the orchard this is i feel the best way to both feed the fruit tree's and the bulbs (min daffs) come up every year no harm done from the fresh horse manure mulch that i use from nov/december time.

By all accounts well rotted manure added into a compost is a first class item, But this is not to say "manure on its own "fresh" can't be used to the good of the soil and "SOME" plants that are in the soil.

 

No NO it went on to say and i quote
excess manure is often said to cause parsnip & carrot to fork!
recent research has disproved this theory.


Now am i right or wrong in the past it was always the case that you applied manure the season before you did the carrot /parsnip 's because it was said they'd fork because the manure was to fresh??? YES OR NO!

Now these test are saying its not the case, so the ideas of all this ammonia etc causing all this problems is not showing true.

YOUR TURN. PING

 

I dont read gardeners world mag, but I can see a difference between fresh manure, which will contain straw or wood chips and rotted manure which is almost black.
To me fresh stuff is basically turds with a bit of straw.:WINK1:

 

No ..because it's too rich..ie the nutrient levels are too high in composted manure. ALL advice I've ever been given, seen written down, heard in a broadcast, shown in real life has involved "well rotted manure" that term in gardening is as common as "dibber" and "watering can"

We are certainly not taking turns here Moonraker, You have written an awful lot in the last wee while that will help other newer gardeners, but this is a discussion forum and we all have our own ways of doing things.

Now if you write a mini article and we only pick out one item, that cannot be that bad surely?

Steve...

 

Well in the 50's whenever the Milk cart man, or the fruit and veg man delivered, and you were lucky enough for the horse to evacuate in your street, it was all hands rush with a shovel and bucket to get it straight onto dads veg/roses, and a silver threepenny bit as a reward :-)

Of course they did not know then what we know now

Jack McH

 

I'm nowhere near as knowledgeable as most folk on here, but this bit seems absolutely fine to me. If you put fresh manure into the soil in autumn, by next spring it should be fine for lots of plots, but I doubt it will be good for all. Lets say we pin autumn down to the beginning of october, and spring as the beginning of april. That gives 6 months for the weather to do its stuff, and soil microbes to get to work on the manure. I'd plant into that, just not root crops (with the exception of spuds, which in my experience love manure no matter how fresh).

Fresh manure is slightly acidic. I think that's fine as a top dressing for roses and most fruit, which don't mind the acid, and appreciate the large quantity of nutrients in the manure. I know its a time proven strategy, and I remember as a kid, before the epidemic of paranoia about Health and Safety came about, the rose gardens at our local park would regularly be topped up with horse manure which wasn't exactly still steaming, but was fresh enough to recognise (and still a bit smelly). Again, I don't think its a 'one size fits all' solution. Some plants actually need poor soil in order to thrive.

 

There's been no mention yet of the possibility of fresh manure containing E.Coli contaminating the veg it's spread on.

 

I didn't think horse poo contained any harmful pathogens.

When I was a kid and we used to keep horses, occasionally a poo fight would break out among all us horse keeping sorts. The round balls made the perfect projectile, like an early form of paintball I guess. The outer casing formed by having had time to dry a bit, with the poo inside still fresh, so a good direct hit would make a rather unpleasant splat on the 'enemy'. Certain target areas were strictly off limits (head and groin) for obvious reasons (even in the 70s, early 80s we had some common sense when it came to safety), but in the heat of battle there was the occasional inevitable foul, for want of a better word. One such unlucky (for me) strike resulted in a horse poo ball smashing right on my mouth, and some of the soggy, steamy interior spilling into my mouth. I was sick at the time, but more than 30 years on, I'm still not yet dead.

 

Although horse poo has been linked to E.Coli outbreaks in veg, I understand (and I can't remember where i got this from) that's it's far safer than cow poo. I'm always careful to pick crops before touching /spreading fresh manure, and don't spread fresh stuff or use fresh stable/barn straw for making paths adjacent salad crops.

I've also been informed there's some E.Coli realated guidance about excluding animals from orchards for a certain period prior to harvesting, so presumably this would have some impact on the spreading of animal poo in orchards.

 

A subject that can go on for ever

The subject of horse vers cow , fresh vers well rotted etc can and will go on for ever,

Its like the thoughts of why are so many people both adult and child so fat these days and suffering all kinds of sickness?
The over weight body carrying a mass of weight and they wonder why heart & blood pressure problems come along early in life.

Is it because my generation im 63, was told what to eat and not like todays children who' tell the mums / dads ect what they will and wont eat Or is it the food on the plate? and what its made of ?????

ie so much junk is added to the food today that i wonder if we are eating food or chemicles?

The veg i was given as a child was grown from manure delivered outside in our street via the horse that delivered the milk, he was a huge black horse and we kids called him "Silver" (that was the only horse name we knew)
but the point is living in a terrace house and the land my dad grew his veg on was the railway sidings "he nor our neighbours" had compost heaps rotting away for 12 months of horse manure and yet we grew up tobe healthy kids, thin kids and we didnt and indeed couldnt sit in the house watching tele all day, green's veg, was cooked and served and eaten.

An apple a day was the saying, but now its advised that these apples are peeled due to the fact that they are sprayed for the supermarkets so they look fresher longer, But sprayed with what? DO YOU KNOW,

No wonder kids dont like fruit,

Have you ever given thought as to why lettuce from a supermarket and bannahs dont last very long once you've got them home?????

Do you know what's keeping the cooler's cool in the supermarket ?
any idea what the frosty looking air is thats hitting the lettuce on those wire shelving??

I honestly think the old ways the victorian gardeners grew veg was the best way and the food tasted like it should taste and it was eaten in season.