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Soil, Compost & Mulch

Free aged horse Manure in Mesa, AZ

13 years ago

I have an unlimited supply (ha ha!) of aged horse manure in East Mesa. It is not mixed with bedding. It is piled up in a 3 foot high pile and pulverized, looks almost like ground up alfalfa. Very few horse balls left but not quite fully composted yet due to the dry winter we've had.

I can give directions to my barn and you can pick up anytime. You can't, unfortunately, pack all the way up to the pile, so I recommend wheeled trash cans as the best mode of carrying. Great for raised bed gardens!

I've been using horse manure, sometimes even the fresh stuff, on gardens and lawns for about 20 years with great success. Have never had any kind of fertilizer burn from it.

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Comments (6)

jolj
13 years ago
Here in South Carolina, we sheet compost & cut it in.
Both cow & horse manure, no problem with burn,weeds or diseases of any kind.
Wish I had your problem!
tracydr
Original Author
13 years ago
I've never had a weed problem with it either. I sort of sheet mulch. I just keep piling it on top as mulch. Plant in it, allowing some to fall in the hole with the plant. When planting seeds, I pull the mulch to the sides but there's so much of it it keeps piling up and the seedlings are growing in basically manure piled up from the last few years. At least, in places I've lived before thats what I've done. Still working on getting my soil right here. The two first gardens are looking better but I'm working with caliche which is just one step up from concrete.
My horses eat alfalfa and I've never seen a weed in it.
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While I won't begrudge anyone who wants to be more careful about food safety and manure, I really don't think it should be a problem for @hu-randomnumber. Food safety guidelines are generally about using 'fresh' (not well composted) manure, and IIRC are generally minimum recommended in the range of 4 to 6 months before harvesting. Horse manure that's been outside for two years or more should be perfectly fine. (General 'wash carefully' guidelines apply anyway - even compost from kitchen scraps or just soil have bacteria). Also, if you look around, manure application guidelines are mostly about cow manure - because it's most often from large dairy operations (where the average size in USA is something like 4000 head). That's where the commercial scale manure is. Horse manure is (in my opinion) less of an issue - digestive systems are completely different - more 'roughage' and more air in horse manure, mixed with drier bedding, and much more likely to compost well. And horse operations are smaller and manure much less likely to be held in a slurry pond or wet pile with no air. At any rate, again, to each his own, but personally I'd have zero specific concerns about well-aged horse manure as described in a vegetable garden, for me or my children.
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Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but wouldn't this result in an extremely high nitrogen growing medium? If so, I would think that your tomato plants would grow enormously, but would provide little or no fruit. What do ya'll think? Another concern would be that I have seen 100% horse manure repel water if the surface is allowed to dry out much. Kind of like peat. Kristi
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aged horse manure worth a 30 mile drive?
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I dont know if you have a city refuge or ag center closer to you...but the one we have (in Perry GA) is about 15 miles from me and they use horse, cow etc as well as all the collected OM, leaves, grass etc. It's like black gold...really nice stuff. It's also free and I think it's worth the drive. It has made my flower bed soil wonderful, and I've put it on all my garden areas now as well as spots on my lawn when they get dead spots..and the grass will start growing again with it. I also have picked up horse poo with shavings locally...I have not had it long enough to tell you if it's any good, but I too posted and got good reviews about it, and it was very close by, so I went for it. Maybe you can check out the city trash pick up and see if they give away their compost?
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aley1511
13 years ago
I would like to pick some up if you still have any.

Thanks
tracydr
Original Author
13 years ago
Sorry, my hubby made four huge raised beds for me. I was expecting one. We've used all the aged stuff.
Keep an eye out, I may have more in the fall. This stuff multiplies pretty quickly when you have four horses. To the tune of 200 lbs a day!
I also have several other gardens which I mixed quite a lot of this into and I have to say that these are my best gardens, ever!
allenkid
12 years ago
I read that you may have some more manure in the fall. It is now officially fall. Ha Ha. 100 degrees plus doesn't feel like it. Do you have any more manure and can I get some? If yess, send me your address or phone number. I have a raised garden that needs some help. Thanks,
Jack Allen
nygardener
12 years ago
Jack, why don't you click on Tracy's member name in one of her posts and then on "Send me an email." Your settings (which you can change) don't allow her to contact you directly. Welcome to GardenWeb, by the way.

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