Manure should be added (tilled or not) a long time before planting.

Compost or composted manure can be used after planting. Consider using compost or manure tea to water it in.

Whatever you choose..

Good Luck,
Gumby_CT

I use a tiller on new beds, but if this is already broken up and you are just adding amendments, you can use a spade fork and just turn the manure into the soil then water in. It's less destructive than tilling.

Using a spading fork or spade or anything else to turn in compost or manure is tilling the soil. While no one is really totally "no till" because we turn the soil each time we plant something, most "no till" people do little turning of the soil other than that. Manures must be tilled in as soon after being applied to the soil as possible and that is another reason why putting manures in the garden shuld not be done. Manure should be composted before it is used in the garden.
Compost can be sprinkled on a planting bed and simply allowed to be worked in by the Soil Food Web.

i want to make sure i understand things correctly...

when you say that manures should be composted...you are saying that i should buy manure from the garden center and THEN add it to the compost pile?

i always thought buying manure from the garden center meant that is was fully composted...???? i thought fresh manures from say...someones farm were NOT composted.

i have no access to fresh manures..just what i can buy at the store.

thanks,
a

Manure you buy at the store should be composted already. The bags I've seen say "composted manure."

Martha

g'day a,

if we where to add an amendment like manure/fertiliser it would be the same way we add our kitchen scraps under the mulch or on an area that needs remulching and then cover with new mulch.

we use green type hay mulches and so far have never percieved the need to add soil feeders, we add to our beds continually daily with our kitchen scraps and finished vege' plants get pulled broken up and left where they once grew covered with new mulch mostly, to rot down and put those nutrients back into the soil.

we run our beds like worm farms as well the worms are there working the organic matter we add and value adding right wher you need it.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: len's garden page

for those that don't till their soil, how do you add manure and other ammendments to your soil?

You don't ever add manure directly to the soil. The stuff you buy at the store called composted manure could be anything. If it burns your plants, then it is not finished compost. Finished compost will smell very fresh. If it you don't say, "WOW!" when you smell it, then it should be composted for another month. But if you have compost that smells good, you add it to the soil just like Mother Nature does, by gently putting it on top.

i understand the concept of throwing down a layer of compost and it will eventually mix into the soil....

I am not familiar with that concept. If you put something on top of the soil, it stays there until it decomposes.

but my soil needs some manure right now and i'm afraid to just leave a layer of it on the soil.

With this style of gardening, you have to think at least three weeks ahead. If you wanted to fertilize your garden, rather than use compost (certainly NOT manure) you should be using a stronger source of protein. Compost has most of the protein used up.

i have seeds to plant for cole crops and i'm positive that a layer of manure will burn the seedlings up.

If your store-bought 'manure' is that hot, then it really is manure and not composted anything. Don't use it. Using the wrong materials is one of the biggest problems with gardening.

so if you add manure...is this the exception to the rule for tilling?

I am not really following that question but you should not use manure and you should not till.

i don't technically have a rototiller, i mix the soil by hand with a shovel or garden claw because i have a small garden. but i know that by the time i'm done mixing the soil, the worm tunnels are destroyed and so is the soil structure...so i might as well have used a tiller.

If you are going to do all that digging, you may as well till.

The bagged manure you buy at the garden center most likely was piled up and left to sit for some time and then was bagged up and transported to your store. Seldom is that manure "composted" as it should be, all that manure really is is well aged. On very rare occassions I have found some bagged manure that did almost smell like good, rich earth and not manure, but mostly what I find in those bags still smells like manure, so it is not really composted.

Kimmsr summed it up nicely. Aged is a meaningless term. Just because the manure was not dropped yesterday does not mean it is progressing through an aerobic composting process either before bagging or while in the bag.

Smell is the best way to determine whether it is finished.

And to add to that, the quality of some of these bagged products can vary considerably. Don't get me wrong - some of these producers make a very high quality product, and you'll pay a pretty penny for that poop. But some of the stuff you find in 40 lb bags for $2 at the big box stores... well, let's just say you get what you pay for.

-Diggity

I have used mushroom compost from the local mushroom farm in my garden. This "mushroom compost" consists of horse manure mixed with hay/straw. It is still rather close to fresh manure (it looks and smells quite a bit like what you might shovel out of a horse stall) and the composting action is still hot when we get it.

This is what I have done with it and the results so far.
We got a pile several months ago and it sat for a while in a pile next to our compost bins. When digging into this pile in the last few weeks it was still warm (above air temps) but it has been really hot here- mid/high 90s most days.

1-Some of it we placed where we planned to plant for our fall garden and covered it over with some wood chip mulch. That has sat for perhaps 6 weeks and then got some seedlings cucumber seedlings placed in it about 5 days ago. They seem to be ok so far, new growth since planting out and no burn signs even though it is still scorching here.
2-Laid out cardboard and covered with several inches of the stuff and another several inches of the wood chip mulch. This I let sit for about 4 weeks before planting corn seedlings 7 days ago. A few of the little seedlings didn't survive transplant but that seems to be from causes other than burn. The rest of the seedlings have grown several inches in the past week.
3-Made big heeps of this mushroom compost (the stuff that sat in a pile for a couple months) on top of cardboard and covered over with wood chip mulch and planted pumpkins in it. They really seem to like it and have grown alot in the past week.
4-dug a trench and alternated layers of the aged mushroom compost with layers of compost from our county waste management and then planted sunflowers among a deep layer of wood chip mulch. They are doing well too.
5-piled the aged mushroom compost on cardboard, covered with wood chip mulch and planted sorghum. Lost a couple but the rest seem to be growing slowly. Transplanted 5 days ago.
6-One bed had the grass/weeds dug up and mushroom compost laid on top and got squash, zucchini and cucumbers. Some of em are a little droopy in the late afternoon as it is very hot but otherwise are growing. Seedlings transplanted there 5 days ago.
7-Another bed got grass/weeds dug out and had mushroom compost mixed into it, then was covered with plastic for a month before being planted with peanuts and tomatos. The peanuts got a fine mulch of sawdust/shavings and the toms got the heavy wood chip mulch. The toms were planted over a week ago and the peanuts planted 6 days ago, they seem to be doing well.
8-Ran out of the aged mushroom compost but just got a new load. Very hot!!!! Well, gardening is an experiment so I mounded some of this new hot stuff up on the last section of cardboard to be covered and put wood chip mulch over it. Planted cucumbers, squash, and zucchini. These were transplanted 5 days ago and they are doing about the same as the ones in the aged mushroom compost.

This is only my first season using this type of manure but we will see how it goes. Last season I used lots of the county compost and had to use quite a bit of liquid fertilizer. Hopefully, this season I can back off the active fertilization since the plants are in a much richer material.

I expect that pilling this fresh mushroom compost around sensitive plants could cause burn but I don't think I would say "don't use manure in your garden, you have to compost it first" You probably do need to be careful how much fresh manure gets used around certain types of plants. Corn and pumpkins seem to like it but your peas, beans and root crops might not.

Does anyone else have some manure experiences to share? I know there are people out there who spread manure (without composting it first) and don't till. I suspect covering it with another mulch will help and if it is really fresh, it should probably be allowed to sit for a while before planting certain crops.

....but my soil needs some manure right now and i'm afraid to just leave a layer of it on the soil. i have seeds to plant for cole crops and i'm positive that a layer of manure will burn the seedlings up.

There is definately a difference between 'compost' and 'manure'. Once you have good compost you can use a taylor hoe to form your row for the seeds. Fill in the ditch with 'compost' and rake it level to the ground. Put your seeds in the mix at proper depth and firm in by hand. Gently soak for good contact with your new soil and keep moist.
These are basic instructions that I learned 35 years ago and have served me well ever since. You can do the same thing without the compost but your seedlings definately do well from the extra boost. Natural compost is the best environment for seedlings ever. Moisture retention and proper air penetration.
I planted strawberries in old horse manure that I thought at the time was old enough. Everyone died without ever breaking dormancy. Evidently I was wrong about the manure being composted.
Every February I mix actual compost with vermiculite to start my seedlings for the season. Works great. I would say that just having the 2 or 3" of compost in the planting row is going to start your cole crops off on the right foot. Whatever you add beyond that can only help.