when to fertilize

I'm growing some vegetables this spring after doing a horrible job last time around. i have chickens in my backyard and lots of poop that i hear is great fertilizer. when, how, should i go about using it. the last frost is in april or may. should i simply mix it with the dirt and let it sit a few months before planting?

Pretty much spread in the fall it and forget it untill spring. Be careful of using fresh manuer.It is full of nitrogen and will burn your plants,

This message was edited Dec 25, 2010 7:27 PM

thank you. if i spread it now, will it be ok to plant by april-may-ish?

It would be much better if you compost the manure before you put it in the garden

What is the advantage of putting the chicken poo in a compost pile over the winter? Why wouldn't its presence in the garden bed result in the same thing as putting it in a compost pile? If there is such a big distinction, I'd really like to understand it. The microbes will get to it either way. If placed in the garden bed, my question would be whether or not to cover it with soil or some other material.

The heat of a compost pile is the only way to kill weed seeds, of which chicken poo is full of. Sadly, I know this from personal experience. Every thing grew like weeds, especially the many, many weeds. (which I had not had a major problem with before a truckload of chicken manure.) Perhaps skooltcher's chickens don't eat many weeds, so it might be ok

Years ago I used free horse manure had so much weeds so I never did again.Belle

well, they just run around by backyard. they eat mainly lay mash but also lots of grass, so i'm sure they eat some weeds.

I would say that piling up the chicken poop with other grasses & dirt will compose the manure much faster. That way, you can use it sooner. By april, you could spread it around in your garden, & then rake it into the top 6" of the soil. Otherwise, if you spread it onto the garden now, you might have to wait 9 months to beable to use it. This reminds me of the story of a person asking information about what to feed plants in the garden. They told me to use fertilizer to feed my plants. Well, I say. This did not answer my question because, what is fertilizer? Why didn't they just say to use l3-l3-l3. People need to get to the point when they try to answer questions.

Skooltcher do you rake up the poo? It sounds like it if they are running free. You're going to miss some of it so I'd check those little missed poops and see what they sprout. I'd be curious. And if they sprout that's some good green stuff. After they sprout the sun would kill them if they are above ground, I would guess. I truly regretted digging in some "free" horse manure a long time ago, too.