Composting

[madeleine]

Hello, I'm new here & I have a question about composting. My neighbor is piling all the manure and soiled hay from his horses stalls on top of his garden. In the spring he will rototill this into the soil. I don't know that much about composting (I'm new at it) but I think he'll just have a weedy smelly mess. Any opinions? Thanks

[Paquebot]

The next thing better would be to till it in now.

Martin

[Phantomfyre]

Welcome to the forum, madeleine!

I dump the horses' deposits from the run-in shed in the garden all winter and till it under in spring. Have done that the past 2 years. It's not very attractive to look at before I get to tilling it, which is a bummer because the garden is RIGHT behind the house, but that's the only drawback I've had with mine. I only have 2 horses, though, and don't use much bedding in the run-in shed, so there isn't that much getting dumped on the garden - a small wheelbarrow load every other day or so on a garden that's approximately 48' x 45'. When I till the garden, there's not enough bulk to see in the soil afterward - it just disappears.

However, Martin's right - tilling in fall would give it more time to incorporate into the soil and compost properly.

[MELOC]

i have been doing it the same as you phamtomfyre. one of the horses is stabled and i get @ 7 gallons of manure and bedding per day. i've been dumping it on the garden just like you for the past month or so. i've been focusing on the area where i plant corn as that was the area in need of the most organic matter. it was always harder in that part of the garden...more clay and rocks etc. the other side is slightly downhill and it has benefited from 100 years of erosion...i guess. it is also the area closest to the house, so when i took a break from using the whole garden, it turned into a weed patch for a few years and i pretty much had to start all over.

i hilled the corn as high as i could this year and last and i have been filling in the "valley" area to the top with manure and sawdust bedding over the winter. the first year i just spread what i had when it was tilled flat. last year i topped off the valley areas and when i tilled it in the spring it looked MUCH better. i expect it to be awesome this year. my only fear is that i will have softened the soil so much that the corn will blow down easier, lol. i should dig up the pic of my 9 foot + tall silver queen corn from this year.

my main garden area is very close in size to yours as well...since i left the black raspberries take over the back edge, lol. it is about a 45 or 50 foot square...maybe a little longer on one side...but i am fighting the berries and taking it back!

here it is...i am somewhere around 5' 10", and if you measure the height clear to the top of the tassle of the plantto my left, i am sure it is 9' +, so i think the dumping over the winter approach works!

[Phantomfyre]

Originally Posted by MELOC

i hilled the corn as high as i could this year and last and i have been filling in the "valley" area to the top with manure and sawdust bedding over the winter. the first year i just spread what i had when it was tilled flat.

That's funny - I did the exact same thing with my corn: hilled it and filled in with manure. Only my corn didn't get nearly as tall as yours! But my garden has only been a garden for 2 years, and was lawn with the most pathetic dead-looking soil you ever saw before that, thanks to the previous owners love of golf-course-appearance and chemical fertilizers, weed killers, pesticides... Ugh. But with the manure, leaves, grass clippings, etc., I now have tons of worms, frogs, toads, beneficial insects and other stuff making a strong comeback. Next year when I plant my corn, I'll have to show the seeds that picture, MELOC, and tell them, "Hey! Do that!"

[laughaha]

It works great. I am currently doing this with the rabbit manure. I'm done playing with the compost tumbler for the year.

All leaves and such are going directly into the chicken pen until early spring, then it will go on the garden.

I can't wait till I have lots more animals to do this with!!

[Rowena]

When I had a small garden I would just bury all my scraps all winter long from the kitchen too in numerous areas, top with manure in the Spring and rototill!! Lazy man's composting I called it.

[madeleine]

Meloc - you've got great looking corn.

Thanks for all your suggestions.

[Stonybrook]

I don't check this forum much, but I was looking for the thread on the compost tumbler. Decided to read this thread. Horse manure is the bomb. I have been putting it in my garden every winter for 20 years. I till it in as early in the spring as possible. If you use wood shavings in your barn though, you have to add nitrogen back to the soil if you till it in just before you start planting. If you can till it in during the fall, that is even better.

[Paquebot]

Horse manure, or any other farm manure, should never be used too heavy unless it's a one-time application. If one follows my recommendation of 1 gallon per 10 square feet of surface area, that's plenty. You can do that year after year with no bad effects. Applied heavier than that, there's a chance of a buildup of salt which negates all of the benefits. That's the only disadvantage of using such manures.

Martin

[MELOC]

for those interested in carbon to nitrogen ratios, i found some info in a book my neighbor gave me from when she was studying for her master gardener certification.


high carbon

cornstalks 60:1
leaves 40:1 to 60:1
oat straw 80:1
paper 170:1
sawdust 500:1
straw 80:1
sugar cane
residues 50:1
wood 700:1

high nitrogen

alfalfa 13:1
afalfa hay 12:1
kitchen scraps 15:1
fruit wastes 35:1
grass clippings 19:1
green sweet clover 16:1
humus 10:1
legume-grass hay 25:1
mature sweet clover 23:1
rotted manure 20:1


it also states that an ideal ratio for quick composting is between 25:1 and 30:1

[Paquebot]

Remember those figures when someone wonders why many farmers opt to burn straw rather than plow it under. Even cornstalks are potential nitrogen drains if plowed under.

Martin

[sammyd]

We pile our manure and plow it and our mulch in before we plant in spring.

He'll have wonderful soil keeping at that program.

We usually do an area of our garden heavy then rotate stuff through there for a couple of years before it sees another heavy application. Although occasionally we will add a little bunny poop to an area if we are running a second crop through it in a year.

[steff bugielski]

In that table it states the ratio to look for is 25: 1 correct.
Then rotted manure and grass hay should be perfect.
or am I reading it wrong.
I dump goat manure on my garden all fall and come spring the worms have reduced it done to soft loose soil. I do not till ever. I plant then mulch heavily with hay. Everything grows great and not too many weeds.

[fordson major]

in the past we have cleaned the muck out of the stables and piled by the garden with a poly cover over the pile, then allowed the manure to work for a year before spreading on sections of the garden that needed a higher concentration of nitrogen. we now work in poultry manure to those areas that will be growing squash, corn, tomatoes or other plants needing higher nitrogen concentrations.
helps to know your soil type, ph, growth zone and nutrient levels before adding amendments, we use a number of soil test labs to determine crop needs both before and after applying manures to the soil.
http://www.ca.uky.edu/agc/pubs/agr/agr57/agr57.pdf

[Paquebot]

Originally Posted by steff bugielski

In that table it states the ratio to look for is 25: 1 correct.
Then rotted manure and grass hay should be perfect.
or am I reading it wrong.

You are correct although many sources use 20:1 as the desired ratio. Everything on that high nitrogen list will compost by itself if in sufficient quantities. It needs only be at a certain degree of dampness to work.

Martin

[Birchbark]

i think the ideal situation is to compost the manure and stall litter. that helps kill all the different pathogens and weed seed with the high temps of composting. the problems arise when trying to get the optimum 26:1 carbon ratio for proper heating of the pile. areation then enters in with a pile so large as it sounds the neighbor has going on. if you can get enough carbon material and good areation heating everything up and composting it is preferred. You will lose the nitrogen but that is happening anyway laying on the ground all winter. it is much better to compost if you can. just lots more work and takes lots more carbon material than most have available.

good luck to you

[rufus]

This year I have really loaded on the manure somewhere around 4" thick straight from the barn where there is a mixture of straw, wasted hay, goat and cow droppings. Not too worried about the weed seed problem, my chickens have worked over the area pretty well and got the majority of the wasted feed and seeds. I lay down cardboard anywhere the plants aren't and didn't have to weed but twice this summer.