View Single Post
Old September 8, 2017   #55
bower
Tomatovillian™
 
bower's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: Newfoundland, Canada
Posts: 6,793
Default

Just an update - I decided to try some manure as a top dressing on outdoor container plants. They perked up and liked it at first, but this particular manure had a lot of grassy bedding in it that was not rotted at all. So the happiness of 'manure' soon gave way to the discontent of 'grassy stuff not breaking down''. Those plants turned a paler green ie N deficiency was the result of not breaking it down first. Obviously not the same as having plain fresh manure.

A friend gave me a great tarp for covering the manure to rot it completely: black on one side. We used the black side out for this to get as much solar heat into the pile as possible. The tarp also prevents rain from washing all the nutrients into the ground. I haven't looked at the manure recently but the size of the pile has shrunk a lot, so I expect it will be in great shape when I'm ready to apply it in the fall.
bower is offline   Reply With Quote