Fresh manure

[James]

Would hot shit still burn if I put it at the bottom of the hole and plant transplants on top if it?

[TQ]

I'm inclined to say yes. If it's 'hot,' then it's packin' a goodly amount of nitrogen, which will burn your roots.

[OmManiPadmeOmelet]

Probably...

I'd use it as a "tea" personally.

[Steve]

No, actually it wouldn't. Whether it's a good idea depends on what you are transplanting over it. Probably not a good idea for cabbage. Much better for pumpkins. The one and only way I was ever able to grow edible melons up here was to dig a trench about 14 inches deep, fill it almost level full of very fresh horse manure and then put the soil I dug out, back on top. This created a raised bed where I placed melon transplants. Two days later, a soil thermometer stuck into the raised bed was 15 to 20 degrees warmer than soil a few feet away. I also covered the ridge with black plastic (before the plants went in), which was a part of why the raised bed was warmer. With both watermelon and muskmelon, the difference is like day and night. Ten times as much vine growth in our cool climate.

Steve in the Adirondacks

[Dwayne]

Asparagus roots planted with 2 inches of dirt between the roots and the manure will grow like crazy. What you have to look out for is what had been eaten to generate the manure. Horse manure will produce a lot of grain plants coming up around what ever you planted on top of it. The same with chicken and several other manures. I feel it is best to get aged (2 years) manure mixed with top soil, and use that, unless you are going to cover it with plastic, newspaper, cardboard, or cloth and plant your stuff in homes in the cover. Don't do asparagus that way.

[JonquilJan]

Depends on what ind of manure you are using. Poultry manure (chicken, turkeys) is much more concentrated than equine (horse, donkey, mule) manure and will definitely burn roots. Cattle manure is about in between and may or may not burn. Aged manure is best in any case. A manure tea is suitable for transplants. To make the tea, put manure (horse -cattle manure preferred) is some sort of a sack (feed sack work well) and dunk it into a bucket (3 or 5 gallon) or water. Let it sit for 30 minutes or longer, occasionally sloshing the sack around. Then remove the sack and dole out the water (should now be a deep 'tea;' color) around the transplants.

Lots of ways to do this - just my personal method.

JonquilJan

[Ottawa]

[Rez]

I wonder if that would work with lettuce and peas here. By the time the soil warms up it's already too hot for them (lettuce gets bitter and bolts almost immediately). If a patch of ground could be warmed like that, while the air is still cool right for the couple months after the last hard freeze, maybe they'd be happier. (Our soil is 100% nitrogen-free. Too much manure is never an issue.)

Would certainly be easier than building a greenhouse :)

~REZ~

[Rez]

Grain isn't so bad, it's easy to yank up. But beware of manure that started life as bermuda grass; it nearly always has mature seeds in it. The seeds come up forever, it spreads all over, and it has roots to China. Great if you're trying to get a lawn going in the desert (the ground cover sure does wonders for soil water retention). Not so good if you're tired of digging grass outta the garden!

~REZ~