Shop Products
Houzz Logo Print
hedgerocks

Cow Manure - first time gardner post

hedgerocks
12 years ago

Hey

I'm building a fairly sizable vegetable garden for my mother as a surprise. The raised beds have been built and are put in place. I'm having 16 cubic yards of screened topsoil delivered tomorrow. But that leaves roughly 4 cubic yards unaccounted for. I have a local farmer who sells cow manure. If its fresh can I incorporate it in with the topsoil. So essentiallly 3/4ths top soil 1/4 semi fresh cow manure? I plan on putting my crops in in about 15 days. Am i crazy to do that. Should i ditch the manure all together? What is "burn" exactly?

Comments (4)

  • gjcore
    12 years ago

    I would pass on fresh manure so close to planting time. Manure is more of a fall time thing when putting beds down for the season. It would be better to use compost to fill in the rest.

    Burn is what will happen to the roots with fresh manure.

  • jolj
    11 years ago

    The fresh manure may not hurt the crops, but you can not eat anything grow above ground for 90 days or underground root crops for 120 days.
    My brother put fresh horse manure in a side dress & ate the crop, but I think he was taking a chance.
    That is why you should compost the manure, NOT Ditch it.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Compost & soil forum

  • mswillis5
    11 years ago

    I called a local horse farm. They had 2 year old horse manure that was composed perfectly. This smells like soil than anything else. I wouldn't use any manure that wasn't composted at least 1 year.

  • dan_nz_gardener
    11 years ago

    Fresh manure is very high in nitrogen, your plants take up too much nitrogen which causes the "burn". In my opinion, there are lots of "rules" out there of what you certainly shouldn't do etc etc but i have put fresh manure in my garden and planted straight away many times with success. Gardening for me is about experimenting and finding out what works and what doesnt regardless of what the books told me to do. Just make sure the manure doesnt come into direct contact with the edible part of your crop and have fun.

    Dan

Sponsored
Franklin County's Preferred Architectural Firm | Best of Houzz Winner