I planted some vegetables (tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, eggplant) and put a cup's worth of dried hen compost in each hole prior to planting. The plants were all about 8-12" tall at the time of outside planting.
Now, 10 days later, there has been no visible progress and some slight yellowing of the leaves.
What should I do now? Take them out and re-pot for a short time while I till the soil?
Any suggestions? tia
Compost is not the same as manure. What you did would have been perfectly acceptable with compost ... and quite possibly fatal with the manure.
Depending on the transplanting conditions (intensity of the light and how long exposed to it, general health at transplant time and so on), it is not uncommon for transplanted stock to be 'set back' for a short time. Most likely this is all that is happening here.
Still, concentrated, uncomposted, manure of any sort (dried manure is not necessarily composted manure) in direct contact with roots is not as good an idea as it might at first seem.
As a rule of thumb, chicken manure should age at least 2 years before using it in gardens, and used sparingly even then. It is very powerful and burns plants easily. One cup per plant sounds excessive.
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