Farmyard manure in greenhouse.

[Ader1]

I managed to get hold of some farmyard manure (cattle) from somebody. It's not fresh which it isn't meant to be. Anyway, I would like to put some in the greenhouse for growing my tomatoes. How should I go about doing this? Mix some in with the greenhouse soil? I don't grow them in bags. Or put a little below the roots of the tomatoes when I transfer them into the greenhouse? Thanks you.

[Bigmallly]

Having never used cow manure, I can't really comment but there may be some info here which may be of use:

The Use of Cow Manure for Fertilizer | Home Guides | SF Gate

[Ader1]

Thanks Bigmallly. I'll take a look at that. What do you use then? It's pretty good as long as it's been left to rot for a couple of years.

[Bigmallly]

I've always used horse manure. There are many animal manures that can be used, Horse, Sheep, Llama, Cow, Sheep, Chicken, Not sure about Pig but am sure the farmers use it when muck spreading.

[Mikey]

Cows are far better at removing the nutrients than horses so generally their muck is inferior to horse, however on the plus side the additional stomachs a cow has do kill the grass seeds which horses can't. Giveth with one hand and taketh away with the other!

Mix it in with your existing soil, I generally also add some Fish Blood and Bone, to my beds at the same time as incorporating more compost, and some potash from the fire.

I like to spoil my toms, to be fair they get far better treatment than any other produce, but then I do hack them back as they grow which I don't with other crops, so I'm probably subconsciously apologising to them.

[Tripmeup]

As Mikey says, mix it in with your current soil and it will be fine..When I am putting my toms into their final flower buckets, I always put a shovel full of rotted cow manure at the bottom...works well for me

[Kristen]

I replace the "soil" in my greenhouse borders each year, and I put in half compost heap and half rotted manure. My compost heap is best described as "rough" - I don't turn it regularly, and stuff just gets chucked in. The plants don't seem to complain! I find it causes weeds seeds to germinate readily, and then struggle as the greenhouse heats up, so its no effort to weed and by the time I come to "empty" the borders, in autumn, the mix is lovely and friable and good for potting up all the Cannas and Dahlias which come in from the ornamental borders. The rest goes onto the vegetable garden where Spuds have been (same bugs).

The compost & manure is relatively light to work with, unlike my heavy garden soil, so I don't find it too onerous to change it each autumn.

[Ader1]

Thank you all for your advice. I'm just wondering how much to manure to mix in with the soil?

[Kristen]

ASsuming the soil isn't already got lots of compost type material in it then I would propose:

Minimum 2" (spread on surface before incorporating)

4" would be good

6" probably a sensible maximum, but I doubt that more will hurt, particularly if the soil is either very heavy, or very sandy.

[Snadger]

I did this one year and regetted it! The muck was well composted but with a lot of straw in it

What I found was I had the same soil consistency at the end of the season as I did at the beginning.The greenhouse is a closed environment so the natural cycle of organic matter breaking down and being turned into humus within the soil is disrupted. Thats why we get salts build up in a closed environment methinks.
I found it far better to change the soil , rather than beef it up.

Give it a try though.........sometimes experimentation, and what works for you, is the best way to go