Horse Manure

With a never ending supply of fertilizer from my two horses, I'm wondering if anyone here has suggestions for making full use of it for my gardens and houseplants.
Any good "recipes"?
Right now, I am layering oak leaves and horse manure in a twelve by four foot area next to the garage, thinking it might break down over the winter, spring and summer. Maybe next fall I can use it on the flower beds.
Also, my parents have been building new garden plots on their farmette this way: they mark the new plots out with stakes, and I dump manure on top of the grass to cover the plot. It will sit there all winter and strangely enough, the grass does not all die off! It grows through the manure if I didn't dump enough on a particular spot. Anyway my Dad tills all this under in the spring, then again in early summer before planting. I also dump manure on the established garden beds, and they get the same tilling as the new plots. LOTS of worms in those beds!
Any other ideas?
Eileen

Spray the new areas with a good herbicide before putting down the manure. Right now you are just fertilizing the grass. Or put down black plastic, old carpeting, newspaper, etc. for several months in the heat of the summer to kill the weeds and grasses. Then apply the manure and till it in.

Aha! I always thought you couldn't use fresh manure on things because it would burn them up, so I thought it would kill the grass! Yes, it did fertilize it...I will try your suggestion. Any ideas on how to treat some manure so any weed seeds will be killed, so I can use it on my houseplants?

If you feed grain to your horses you might end up with oats in your garden! The manure can burn more delicate plants and I think it also depends on what they eat.

LimeyLisa Kay

A old deceased friend of mine use to dig a 16 or so inch hole throw steaming horse manure clumps and cover well. He then put his tomato transplants in the hole. He claimed in the spring he got heat and in the late summer the roots reached the cooled off manure and got fed. Don't know anymore except.


Herman was a real farmer and cow man and he said it worked for him. Ernie

I use horse manure for my gardens. It's great for lasagna gardening. If you use thick layers of newspapers for your first layer, you don't need the expense of the herbicide, the grass can't make it through. I start these in the fall afer all the other gardening is over, and don't plant until the following springs transplants are ready to go out, that way it's plenty aged.

I also use it for a top dressing, and in the holes when I plant. Just be sure it's last year's that way.

NEVER use it fresh from the pen, or you will have weeds and hay growing instead of plants!! Legit

I used horse manure one time and ended up with these terrible weeds that took me 3 years to completely get rid of.

Since then I have opted to just go get treated steer manure at the nursery.

Karrie20x I use old cow stuff all the time no weeds. I hace two dump truck loads in a pile that gets mixed up and turned up all summer while it cooks down the weeds are killed and the problem is gone.

True story one thing a Weed knows is weeds. Ernie
edited to add the word loads

This message was edited Dec 6, 2003 3:12 PM

Here's quite an interesting link to making planting "beds" in grass, using horse manure. You have to really study it a bit to see exactly what they are doing, but I can see how it would work to our advantage!
http://www.countrylife.net/servlets/sfs?t=contentFeatureArticle&i=953568555281&b=953568555281&c=Default&l=0&customerID=guest&FormID=0&id=972658822249

Darius, I like the (link you provided) lazy potato bed idea. Looks like a way to use the manure too.
I don't give my horses grain so don't have to worry about that sprouting. Seems like any grass seed sprouts *before* the manure is tilled in in early summer and is killed when it gets tilled in.
Thanks for the ideas!
Eileen

Thanks for that link, there's lots of good reading over there when I have more time. I use horse manure because I have plenty of it. The older stuff has less weeds so I think time kills some of them.

Three years ago I saw composted manure used to keep weeds from growing like bark as a ground cover.

It came from a huge dairy farm whose owners put it through some sort of composting process.It was funny stuff it didn't look or smell like manure and it wasn't stuck togeather and was relatively light.

I saw this at a hydrangia nursery and I think the guy said the manure was squeezed to dehydrate it then composted and turned untill the heat was out of it.

Its up on the border maybe I should go this spring and buy another plant and recheck out the process.Ernie

I have no problem with oat grass, I think it is attractive, pulls up easily if you want and only lives a couple of months.

Manure carries weed seed from the forage, as in grasses or weedy hay.
§

Scooterbug I do believe you are right or if you are not right I agree with you and you can see the difference when the manure comes from cows being fed alfalfa and local hay or pasture grass.

I do know this much I once was dumb enough to use old hay for mulch and the weeds I got were tremendous I tilled the garden early that year.Ernie


MaryE you may be right about time killing the weed seeds in the manure but I kinda think the heat has more to do with the viablity of weed seeds than the age.Ernie

Ernie, I too have made both mistakes using hay and fresh manure for mulch and top dressing, and LOL, the nightmare that can create!!!! Now I make sure my manure is at least one season old, and I agree with you, the heat produced by the pile is the key, and a manure pile can get HOT in the summer sun. My old hay either goes outside for a season before I use it, or gets used to start a lasagna type mound, where it gets smothered if grass grows, and no plants are introduced early on, and I can just roundup any undesirable that appear. It's called finding ways to use what you have!! legit

So if heat is the key, then if I put fresh manure in some black plastic trash bags and set them in the sun, do you think by mid summer the weed seeds would be killed? (then I would add to my regular compost pile, which doesn't heat up and takes a year or so to finish)

In my humble opinion, as long as the temps really get up there, that should do it. But remember, it's still fresh manure, so don't use it directly on plants! Anyone else?? Legit

Fresh manure that has been in a black plastic bag in the sun for just a few days gets pretty hot, and also stinky, so be careful where you put those bags to cook. Yes, the smell comes through the plastic bag! I think about 6 weeks should kill most of the weed seeds and use up most of the nitrogen (didn't I read somewhere that manure is ok to use on your garden if it is over 6 weeks old)?

MaryE hope some who knows will come along and answer the time question.

About time and manure I know people selling produce at farmers markets can't or are not supposed to use manure unless it is so long prior to selling because of the chance of E Coli. I don't know what the time is though.At least in this state and maybe its only for the organic people but E Coli is if it is for all so I think it's for all.

And you are really right about the stink through the bag deal it is magnified. Ernie