Funny story: I'm a "city boy" with a backyard garden so I don't have ready access to manures. But I did have a friend years ago, who had a weekend farm that he invited me to. He had a few horses and cows on the premises, and I took home with me in my hatchback several black-plastic bags half-filled with manure. (The ride back was aromatic, to be sure.) I set the bags aside until time to use the contents, and when I finally did I was shocked by the number of June Bug larvae I found crawling under the bags. Big, fat creatures, the size of one's little finger. They either came along with the manure, or the manure became a magnet for them . I destroyed as many of the larvae as I could, but it took a couple of summers before I could say I won the war of the June Bugs.

There is always a potential problem with many disease pathogens in any animal manure, which is why all animal manures should be properly composted before being spread on the garden. Just how much exposure your plants and fruits may have will depend on what you did after spreading and working that manure into your soil. Is your garden well mulched? Mulches can aid in keeping soil from being splashed onto the fruits which would lessen the chance of a disease pathogen getting onto those fruits.

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.

Wow. The more I read these ideas, the more my back hurts...and the ground is still frozen, so I cannot even begin to dig! Maybe it is time for the back-story: I am getting a new allotment garden plot at a local site. The ground is heavy clay, not very fertile at all and rather weedy. Everyone knew that the previous renter was leaving after last summer, so they all tossed their weeds and stems and junk on the plot, so it really looks like a mess. My hope is to plant a couple rows of raspberries and strawberries on it next year, so I would like to get the plot improved as quickly as possible this year. I also want to curb the weed problem. My first thought was to fill it up with legumes like peas, beans, etc. to maybe generate a bit of a crop for this year, but mostly to fix nitrogen, break up the clay and generate green manure. I read that fava/broad beans are great nitrogen fixers and also generate tons of greens for compost or mulch, so I was considering planting some of those along with the peas and snap beans. Then I found out about the free horse poop and started wondering if there was a way to get it incorporated heavily into the plot without the neighbouring allotment renters rising up and slaying me because of the smell! That is why I was trying to get around conventionally composting the manure above ground. One thing about these allotment gardens is that they are all sitting about six inches lower than the grass in the aisles around the beds. They have been used up and packed down heavily over the years. Each plot area is 20' by 25', so 500 sqare feet. I would need about nine yards of compost/soil to bring it up six inches to grade, and 18 yards to raise the whole allotment 6 inches above grade. This will be a big job.