Manure

gjautos · September 2021

I'm looking at trying to improve my soil a bit. It's clay, but over many years (of.previous gardeners not me) the top soil has become dry and a bit dusty. Would something like this be suitable? Apart from the obvious, what's the difference between horse and cow poo?
https://www.springbridge.co.uk/bulk-bags/composts/well-rotted-horse-manure-small?gclid=Cj0KCQjw18WKBhCUARIsAFiW7JxJ84jomlSaecw-o-PGrpy4LjvWNiFaWvhETEp0qRVCqp4GDVYtXRIaAiZSEALw_wcB

Dovefromabove · September 2021

Should be perfect. Stable manure is richer than cattle manure.

Sometimes a drawback with stable manure can be that if an older horse has bad back teeth it doesn’t grind its oats sufficiently to prevent them germinating in the manure … but manure from a racing stables shouldn’t have that problem as the horses will be younger with a full head of teeth. 😀

gjautos · September 2021

Thanks for the quick answer @Dovefromabove
It doesnt matter as I will be using it on flower beds. But the company state not suitable for veg growing. Any idea why that would be? I have a veg bed so will look elsewhere for something for that

didyw · September 2021

Feeling very much like the older horse @Dovefromabove. Still, dentist this week and new back teeth should help me grind my oats a bit better!

robairdmacraignil · September 2021

It has been a good few years since I bought horse manure since I can get it for free from a farm yard near my garden in recent years but that sounds very expensive for a not so big bag of manure. Also not sure why the add says it is only suitable for acid loving plants as I was under the impression that properly matured manure would be fairly neutral in acidity and should be perfect for use in preparing ground for vegetables. Do you know any farmers close to where you live that you could ask if they had material you could collect? I wouldn't see one of the bags in the advertisement going very far and anyone with some farm animals is likely to have material they would be happy to see cleared away. Even some more competitive garden centers might have manure available for cheaper and when I bought bags of matured horse manure it was much less expensive when I got a pallet delivered directly from local stables that had it as byproduct of their horse business.

Jac19 · September 2021

Dry and dusty turns into caked mud when you pour water on it. That layer holds a lot of water in it and allows very little water, if any, to drain into the soil under. So, there is very little water that gets down under and plants have to suffer by sending roots in the top thin layer only. Plus roots rot from all the water there. Also aereation gets really bad throughout.

The first thing to improve that soil is to allow water to drain down to the lower layers. That means lots of John Innes No. 3.
And gritty horticultural sand.
Both dug into and mixed well with the top 6-8 inches.

Right, now you have water going down to the lower layers, yes?
Now decomposed organic matter at the top can go down to the lower layers with the water and start enriching the bottom layers.
So, now you can mulch in a lot of farmyard manure at the top to help this process.

However, farmyard manure, which also holds a lot of water in it, will not work without first improving the severe drainage problem with John Innes and gritty sand.

What will also help after the initial drainage improvement stage is to buy and release some garden worms into your garden. They say to dig a hole per square 1.5m, put 5 worms in, and fill with light compost. They will drag compost and rotting manure down to the lower layers and also work on making the lower layers more porous such that more water will go down there carrying enriching decomposing organic matter down with it.

I bought mine here:

https://www.thompson-morgan.com/p/worm-colony-packs/FCOPTM

Jac19 · September 2021

After solving the initial drainage problem, what will also help is planting a lot of annuals. Plants are very good at sending roots deep in and down. And when they die every year, those roots decompose in place and become compost. This also makes the deep layers more and more porous, allowing water carrying organic nutrients and air to seep into the previous space the roots will have occupied.

So, now you can start piling in any types of compost and farmyard manure at the top and these natural processes and the worms will carry it deep down and enrich the soil in the whole area.

Jac19 · September 2021

So, first all decomposing material, including farmyard manure, take in nitrogen from the surrounding soil to decompose into forming Nitrate, and then more to decompose further and form Nitrites. I think it is the Nitrites that is in the form plants absorb.

So, even if decomposing manure takes in Nitrogen from the surrounding soil to decompose in the first 2 stages, they put it all and more back into the soil in forms plants can absorb at the later stage when it decomposes into Nitrites.

I think, if the manure is at the top of the sol, it can use Nitrogen from the air to decompose into the first stage Nitrate, instead of from the surrounding soil. However, I am not 100% sure as I have not looked into this.

Close to 75% of our atmosphere is inactive nitrogen N2.

punkdoc · September 2021

Sorry, but most of this is factually inaccurate.
JI will not improve drainage.
Horticultural sand will have no effect.
Just add well rotted manure, this is a tried and tested means of improving drainage.

Hostafan1 · September 2021

Adding sand to clay basically make the ground like concrete, don't do it

Simone_in_Wiltshire · September 2021

Having clay soil like concrete during the summer, I started converting the former lawn area into beds by doing this:
October: I went with a fork through the area and gave it air like you do it with a lawn in Autumn
November, the month with plenty of rain and the soil was now much wetter/muddier: I bought bags of farm manure. Before I applied the farm manure, I used the fork to dig everything up side down (looking for nasty creeping cinquefoil roots). Gone through this 3x and then started to fork the manure into the soil.
January: I bought another 3 bags of manure and forked them into the soil.
February: I forked again everything several times.
May: I planted loads of annuals into the bed.
I had bought a wooden compost bin, and when ever I planted a new plant, I added the left clay soil to the compost. And again here, I broke the clay with my hands and mixed it with the compost soil.
Clay soil needs to be broken first. It's not done with putting soil improver on top of it. Once the clay is forked through again and again, then add manure if you don't have leaves to do the job. The risk with manure is that you get other nasty weeds. I wouldn't do it again, but I had to due to lack of compost soil.

Manure

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