What a Load of Old Sh**

[Clot]

[Rick Hughes]

Unfortunately not an option ... Horse or Cow

[Rick Hughes]

Having had a lot of replies here .... Googled extensively and also posted same Q on a couple of gardening forums ... The order of preference for manure is: Elephant Sea Bird & Bat guano Cow Pig .. high nutrient, but wet to handle Chicken / Turkey .... too strong to use direct - needs composting first Horse ... needs composting first Rabbit & Sheep ... difficult to collect , high nutrients but does not improve soil condition. Slurry ... too messy for home garden use. Human .. unless composted, some waste treatment plants sell this. Local one use to have a sign 'Buy your own back' .. interestingly many people reported tomatoes plants started arriving .. seems tomatoes seeds pass through human gut unscathed.

The answer to my particular Q is that well rotted cow manure is better for my purpose. The reason is that a horse has small intestinal tracts .. what goes in comes out with a large quantity of undigested vegetable matter .... This means that many seeds from weeds & grasses are passed straight through and will then germinate in your garden. You can get round it by composting well for 2 yrs before use.

Cows with their multiple stomachs ferment food for much longer, killing majority of seeds.

I went and picked up 3 Ton of very well rotted cow manure ... the farmer has a compost heap about 40m long, and he dug into it with tractor bucket to the stuff he knew had been there at least 3 years. It came out black, crumbly, and did not stink to high heaven.

Whereas the front end of pile was bright green, wet, and seriously stank ! This was not slurry as he does not use slurry pit method.

Added 100mm of this to top of the raised beds, and then 100mm of top soil on top of that ..... in about 2 weeks will put in seed potatoes.

Somebody mentioned - depends on what had been growing in the soil previously ...... soil was a 36 ton pile of top soil I bought about 8 years ago ... been sitting there waiting for this task. It did get heavy infestation of Mares Tail ... which must have been in the imported soil. As a result I fully sifted each and every shovel full with a power sifter, removing all weeds, clay & stones. (20mm mesh)

Soil is probably still a bit heavier than I would like ... but this manure treatment should help - as will first crop being spuds.

I could add in some sharp sand to help I suppose ... see how manure improves condition.