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Vegetable Gardening

How much compost is too much?

13 years ago

I have to raise my new beds 4"-6" to bring the soil up to the level of the walkway. I have a boat load of fully composted horse manure. (Actually it's a mix of what was originally horse manure and wood bedding pellets.) Any reason I can't do the whole amount of fill that's needed with it?

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Comments (6)

oregonwoodsmoke
13 years ago
I've had good luck with a 50/50 mix of compost and sand. I don't know about using 100% compost without any soil at all.

It would work if you put 4 inches of your compost and then took a shovel and turned it in, mixing it with the dirt below it.

I'd definitely be using a lot of that compost.
jonhughes
13 years ago
Yeah, Personally, I would fill that bed up to rim (Heaping too ;-) , as far as the plants are concerned, if they don't find what they are looking for in the compost, they will send they're roots down to your native soil, and it will be no issue at all.

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What it comes down to is all this blather about how this soil benefits what is growing in it. The water in the well tells a great story....its being poisoned by something....and the farmer doesn't know what it is. You can guess until the cows come home about how much is too much, how much of this benefits the quality of the compost or is what is being added not a benefit at all, its a hindrance to what is being tried to grow. Without a proper, and widespread soil test, the farmer is guessing....farmers' don't usually guess...its their livelihood to know what they are putting on their fields. Aspen is widely used as a bedding material...its usual name might be "excelsior"....not much good for anything else. Is such waste good for composting....I've looked, cant find any definitive answer. So the use of it as an addition to any compost is of unknown quality. So the water in the well is bad...so what's the farmer doing about it....evidently nothing. To suggest that a raised bed can be benefited by the adding of raw horse manure for vegetables.....well, you gotta take that with a grain of salt.....lots of salt to kill the pathogens that is giving the ingester the runs. Hopefully, diarrhea is the least of anybody's problems of eating such vegetable from such addition. Personally...I don't believe a person would do such a thing....but then, who's to say what strange behaviour is the norm in the family. The farmer needs to have somebody with expertise of land management come in and tell him what is wrong and how to fix it.....if it ever can be fixed in time before the children come to grief. A half acre is not that big a piece of land that, with proper care, couldn't be brought back to goodness of its soil. To suggest that just because such compost is being layered 1/3" to 1/2" over a span of 5 years is doing something FOR the soil--with that kind of compost and possibly as well, not finished, is also GUESSING about its quality. I rate it as of poor quality....very poor quality and the future, it seems, will not be any different.
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seysonn
13 years ago
Fully composted horse manure, with some additives, is fine, but mixed with some natural/inorganic soil is even better. Your plants need a host of elements/minerals that are not present in horse manure. Somebody mentioned adding sand to HM. I differ. That mixture will not retain moisture well. But clay is just the opposit of sand and has benefitial elements as well.

Disclaimer: JMO
subk3
Original Author
13 years ago
Thanks!

The bed is a kitchen garden outside my just constructed new house. (We're still working on the punch list!) I had processed soil brought in when we did the grading all around the house a few months ago. So the composted horse manure--produced lovingly by my own horses--will be on top of 5-8 inches of that which is on top of my native clay like soil.

I'm planning on tilling the processed and the clay, then adding the compost and tilling it in as well. Then adding plants--im just moving into the house so nothing much from seed this year as I'm already late!

Also what elements/minerals are missing from horse manure and wood compost and what would you add to it in a perfect world? Since composting from my horses is the long term plan, does it make sense to take a sample to my ag extension office for tests?
seysonn
13 years ago
Very good plan, subk3
It is nice to know that the manure is Home-made by your own horses. The reason I say this, is that today I got a free truck load(about one cubic yard, I loaded and hauled myself). So I was just wondering what the PH level of HM is? So I did a net search and got to the point of confusion: Some said HM is acidic, some said it is basic and some mentioned that it is close to nutral(7.2)Finally sifting through the information I found out the following:
1) adding hey, straw,..can make HM acidic.
2) Adding lime WILL increase PH way too high.
3) pure composted HM is perfectly safe as additive to any garden soil, be it acidic or alkaline, provided it is done in say 50/50 or even at a lower ratio.

but the number(2) HM can be problomatic if you have a sweet soil already or it is at the borderline. But since my soil is still low in PH (about 6.2) I should have no worries. But I will test the manure and also will ask the kind donor if there is any lime in their HM.
Donna
13 years ago
The process you are describing is nearly identical to the one I used three years ago. I built 9 raised beds. Several were filled with compost added to my native clay. A couple were straight horsemanure and wood bedding mixed in with native soil. Some were all of the above. The manure broke the clay down and made it friable far more quickly than the compost (surprise). But as far as nutrients, there was little difference in the beds. I added Green Sand and Rock Phosphates to them all, and use cover crops and Blood Meal for the nitrogen that a soil test recommended. You can guess all day what you need (which is what I did the first year), but a $5 soil test will tell you exactly. It's well worth the effort.

Work at it and be patient. Everytime you replant, work in more organic material. My soil is so soft and friable now it's like a miracle.

BTW, the sawdust in the bedding can tie up nitrogen in your soil until it breaks down.

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