DR HOLLY ON GROWING YOUR OWN FOOD: What about the manure
Last Update: September 21, 2020 at 3:32 pm
DATE: Sept 16, 2020
SOURCE: NFTS
DR HOLLY ON GROWING YOUR OWN FOOD: What about the manure
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Garden Series for NFTS – Sept 16 2020
What about the manure
Well that depends – oh yeah, just like everything else….
The factors you may want to take into consideration are:
- Soil Improvement
- NPK of manure
- Herbicide content
- Antibiotic content
- Pathogens
- Degree of digestion by the animal
- Availability
- Weed seeds
I am personally looking for the following:
Soil improvement:
- increasing nutrient : minerals (nitrate, phosphate, calcium, potassium, magnesium) micronutrients
- microbe population: hugely important; good healthy microbes is probably one of the most important factors for growing a huge amount of produce and quicker than others soil structure, remember we talked about the different types of soil, sand, clay, loamy, etc.
- drainage : composting increases drainage in the soil
Some general rules of thumb are:
- Rabbit manure doesn’t need to be composted before being used
- Hot manures tend to have a low C:N ratio; allowing the manure to sit and compost increase the relative nitrogen level
- Fresh cattle manure tends to have a better NPK aka nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, than horse
The challenge is:
- What were the animals fed
- Were they given anti-biotics
- Is there herbicide content in the manure
- Pathogenic material in the manure
So all I can tell you is what I do:
- I always get organic manure
- I get chicken, cattle and horse manure – don’t get rabbit because I don’t have any close to me.
- I always let it sit and compost for a few months before using
- So when I am shutting down the gardens in the fall – I spread kitchen compost that I have composted in a rotator
- Then I cover with the garden greens that I have cut during the growing season – I have colorful leaf bags around the garden so that I am composting all the time. Remember that when you are cutting leaves back – make sure you get a lot of good healthy green stuff – that is still full of nutrient. Once the leaf is brown and dying, the stem, trunk, whatever, has absorbed all the nutrients and there isn’t a lot left. So good healthy pruning this year is great for next year – and tomato plants and zucchini or squash plants probably require the most pruning – so lots of good stuff there.
- Then I cover with the horse manure, then cow manure, then chicken manure
- The reason for this layering is that each layers helps to compost the prior layer
In the spring I have awesome soils – nutrient dense with good healthy microbes. The production of produce is quicker and more abundant.
Now if you only have room for deck or window sill planting – this obviously doesn’t work. And you may want to resort to purchasing manure. Most commercially purchased manure has the same NPK from what I can gather. And they don’t tell you about what the animals were fed on, injected with, or how long it was composted/aged/or rotted.
You may also want to add some worms to keep the soils moving.