This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.
aged manure advice?
johngreen
Posts: 58
in Fruit & veg
I moved to a country property last year and that first summer my garden was just plain awful. (Maybe this was because I was ill all summer) but I think the soil here is not very good.
My landlord tells me he has some aged sheep manure that is more than ten years old. I'm wondering if this is safe to put into my veggie garden? or do I need to compost it?
My garden is quite large and so I am looking at economical ways to fertilize it.
My peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, watermelon and some others did not grow very fast last year and I got almost no harvest from them.
the plants that did well were: sunflowers, pumpkin, peas, carrots, zuchini, corn
0
Posts
Okay, he says I can have all I want. I asked him if it was composted..he said no, so I'm not sure what the situation there is
If it's been stacked in a heap then it will have composted itself - it'll be fantastic - lucky you - green with envy here
It will be fabulous for your garden, especially for leafy vegetables.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
A few years ago we built 2 raised beds on our drive, one about 20x4m and the other about 15x6m roughly, although only about 0.75m above the drive level they were dug about 1.5m into the hardcore of the drive so there was plenty of stuff for the roots to get into. Needless to say buying soil to fill that was gonna cost a fortune, so we used years old sheep muck we had on the farm, and it has been fabulous!!!!! It wasn't as composted as it maybe should have been; thus has continued composting itself over the last few years and sunk a little but the plants look wonderfully healthy!! might have been better with a few inches of topsoil on top! Rather ironically I now have about 500 tonnes of topsoil I'm trying to shift!!! How things change!!
Wow Claire that's awesome. Well if it's that good then I'll definitely have to get some. I also have tons of chicken manure mixed with straw from the coop this winter, but I'll have to compost that stuff first.
thanks for the replies
That's what i did this winter but the problem is that it's frozen here all winter so it doesn't decompose at all..at least I don't think it would
I built a small compost last year, but for my big garden it isn't much. i'll make another this year, a big ol heap. it's 7:47 am right now
alright i got another question about aged manure. I was looking at the manure in my coop today and it looked like it had broken down some, but not like a well composted manure you know? it didn't look like soil or anything. Now this aged sheep manure, what do i look for to know whether or not it's good to go in the garden? how dangerous is it if it's not composted enough?
It will be fine - put a good layer over your veg patch and dig it in - sheep and goat manure can be used fresher than chicken and cattle manure which can burn the roots of plants if it's too fresh.
This old thread may be helpful http://www.gardenersworld.com/forum/problem-solving/vegetables-and-horse-manure/74477.html
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
okay thanks edd