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Post by daylilydude on Jan 23, 2011 8:27:43 GMT -5
A 2 part question?
1rst: When you spread this stuff, how thick should it be applied before working it in?
2nd: How old should the stuff be to keep weed seeds from sprouting and it burning the plants?
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Deleted
Posts: 0
Joined: January 1970
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Post by Deleted on Jan 23, 2011 9:14:24 GMT -5
I always compost for 6 months first. Don't ever add fresh, if you have plants growing. It is to 'hot' it will burn the roots or stocks. You can add fresh in the fall, if it will be a few months before planting. I would suggest tilling it in and letting it decompose over the winter months.
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Post by coppice on Jan 23, 2011 10:06:24 GMT -5
Composting helps (but does not eliminate) reduce volunteer seeds, like grass',
Fresh hot manure from a herbivore is safe enough to plant into beds where it has been applied and mixed into beds as soon as soil has cooled. Exceptions to that kinda hurry-up schedule (for me) are lettuce and radish which get consumed sooner than 90 days from manure application.
Composted herbavore manure works fine for short lived foods. Um critters like rabbit, goat sheep, horse, cattle. IMO some of the bugaboo of manures is directly conected to the heat it may still be producing. Once passed, its over.
The cautious manure user really wants to get omnivore critters poo to compost before application. Critters like swine, poultry.
Carnivore manures, like people, cats, dogs gets lumped into stuff probably not suitable for direct application to garden beds. This stuff probably aught to get applied to landscape plantings after composting, and only be indirectly applied. Um, if you hay a feild applied with humanure and use that in your garden its close enough and still safe to apply the result of that past composting.
As I get the actual state of Ohio rulings on how a local camp ground can safely dispose of its humanure I will share that out.
Application amounts, for me that tends to be limited more on what my back will stand than any guestimate of upper amounts. For all practicle terms that means if I'm lucky my raised beds will get two to three inches of manure, and I'll fork that in.
How much is too much? More than what you can blend into beds will result in a cake effect that makes watering harder and does not materially add to crop yeild or ease of working. A possible exception to this might be setting out a new raised bed that is simply set on top of a lawn or hayfeild and has a layer of a light block, like cardboard and is then filled with manure and allowed to sit idle for a year. For the idle year what you will have built is a compost bin in place to become a raised bed.
I'm too cheep to want to spend for bagged finished composts--manures. I have started beds by doing no more than simply turning sod root side up and laying down a light block of newspapers-cardboard and filing raised beds around tomato plants with grass clippings. or leaves.
Mulching and using a light block reduces weeding. Nothing applied completely eliminates volunteer wind blown seed or rhizomes. Not even glycophosphate's.
Better you make a happy environment for common earth worm to do your sifting and blending chores for you. After he's had a year or two to do the heavy lifting then go in and sift or double dig to suit finicky vegetables like carrot or celery.
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