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Soil, Compost & Mulch

horse manure, cow manure, lasagna garden...

15 years ago

i know i'm opening up a can o' worms here, but here goes:

#1. is the only difference between the two is that horse manure is food that has not been digested as thoroughly? (cuz cows have more stomachs?)

with that said, i've read that horse manure may contain more weed seeds so...

#2. what's your experience with adding horse manure to your lasagna garden in the fall, i'm not worried about it breaking down in time for anything, but will i get additional weeds??

3. I have a compost pile going, but don't generate enough greens to work both compost and lasagna bed, would I be better off to make a new compost pile for the garden instead of place the manure in the lasagna garden?

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Comments (4)

digdirt2
15 years ago
4 legged manure is manure is manure. ;) You add what you can get and if it is free so much the better.

Have used composted horse manure for many. many years with few if any problems. Also use composted cow manure. Basically it is 6 of one and 1/2 dozen of the other IME. Now turkey or chicken? That's a different thing all together.

Dave
greenbean08_gw
15 years ago
I layered horse manure (aged or composted - I don't really know. I know it was not fresh...) in my raised beds when I built them this spring. I didn't have a weed problem at all.

I have some that was much fresher that I used that in an unexpected planting. I had to opportunity to get some free strawberry plants that I didn't have a bed prepped for, so they went into an old kiddie pool filled with a slightly aged, manure and hay mix. There are some grasses and a couple weeds sprouting in the pool, but again, that was a less than ideal use.
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Horse manure is truly a gardens ambrosia. This wonderful product is such a fantastic addition to the organic garden that I just dont know where to begin. Unlike other manures that need to be rotted off before use horse maure may be used fresh with no ill effects. For years I have actually used a mix of fresh and composted horse manure as my actual soil for plants that require a large nitrogen soil, planting directly into it instead of using it as a soil booster. Leaf veggies such as lettice, spinach, and cabbage produce amazing results in the order of 2-3 X the production of those grown even in good soil. Interestingly the best results I have had though is to make a small hill of fresh horse manure on top of hardpan, about the size and height of a pie pan, into which I plant 3 pumpkin seeds and 5 corn seeds. I generally get 3-4 ears of corn per stalk and 4-10 pumpkins per vine using this meathod. I generally make a row of these spaced 2 feet apart and give lots of room for the pumpkin vines to sprawl between rows, 5-8 feet is good between rows as these will sprawl. Last note; If you use fresh uncomposted horse manure a 1-2 inch mulch of sawdust is recomended to retard weed growth. At the end of the year turn this into the ground and it will rot off over the winter due to the high nitrogen of the manure. Next spring you will have beautiful black loam to plant into.
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New to this forum. Enjoying all the new stuff I'm learning. Feeding Bambis alfalfa will get verrry expensive. I have both cows and horses and can't tell any difference in how hot it is or which one has more weeds, although my grandfather always swore horse manure was too hot. You can use green manure, but don't pile it up thick on anything or it will burn (it starts cooking). You can mix green in with your native soil, and it will be fine. I planted larkspur and delphenium directly into green manure and they were gorgeous and healthy. I used to plant my annuals with a scoop of composted manure and got many, many weeds immediately around the plant. I blamed the manure and started planting them with a spoonful of Osmacote. I still have lots of weeds. I realize now it was the combination of turning over the weed seeds to sunlight when I planted along with the added nutrients. It doesn't matter whether it's manure or a commercial fetilizer. I'm going back to the manure as it's free. My conclusion: Weed seeds are everywhere and when you turn them over to the sunlight and give them a boost with manure or commercial fertilizers, they go nuts.
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In the very small amounts that you could add to your vermicompost bin, if you did, there would not be enough manure, and the mixture would be too wet anyway, to heat up. If you did add enough manure so the bacteria could generate enough heat to be of concern you probably would notice a terrible odor before that happened.
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Since a Lasagna bed is sheet composting under a different name you can do that. That the digestion process in that Lasagan bed most likely will not get as hot as a compost pile be aware that any disease pathogens that may be in the mnaure will not be killed off.
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Kimmsr
15 years ago
When I did, in my ignorance, add animal manures to the garden beds without first composting those manures, I did see an increase in "weeds" and it made no difference if it was manure from dairy cows, horses, pigs, goats, sheep, llamas or alpacas, unless it was dehydrated manure. It seems the heat used to dry that manure was enough to kill any "weed" seeds. Since the easiest method to keep these "weed" seeds out of the garden is to compost the manure first it simply makes sense to do that, along with all the other very good reasons to compost manure before applying it to your garden soil.
west9491
Original Author
15 years ago
what i was going to do was add some to both the compost pile and my lasagna garden - some of the compost will go to the lasanga when it's done, but most will go to the lawn and trees n stuff.

i don't really have anything nitrogen to add to my lasagna garden to help decompose the leaves, what i do generate has to go to the compost pile,

oh yeah, here's another question, i told you about the 'winter rye' that i sowed as cover crop for my veg. garden......2 weeks now, still hasn't germinated, and it's been watered a lot....so, i may just have some grass seed all over the place, what should i do about that?

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