Growing in fresh manure with lots of straw.

[SimpleSimon]

Has anyone ever tried this? I took delivery of 4 tonnes of very fresh stuff. It was steaming, stunk heavily of urine and contained quite a bit to straw. It was grim to say the least. I was moving the whole lot to the back of the plot with the intention of rotting it down and using it in a year or so. I had 2 beds that I've been planning to convert to no dig and layered multiple layers of cardboard down with the intention of not using them this year. So figured may as well fill them up with manure, so added about 6 inches of fresh manure and covered with plastic. Well then I had 6 spare squash plants and though well why not. So I added a small layer of very well rotted donkey manure and in went 6 butternut squash plants about a month ago. Right into fresh manure. Well they are now flying and look incredibly healthy. They are all about 3 foot in spread. Is this gonna catch up with them? Will they produce fruit normally? Wondering if all the nitrogen in the manure has made them grow rapidly but they won't fruit properly. Be interesting to see I guess.
Simon

[burnie]

Traditional advice is no, but it might be interesting to see how you get on with the squash plants, hot boxes are the only thing I have heard of using fresh manure and that is usually horse manure. Keep us posted as I'm sure may have similar access to fresh dung.

[Snadger]

I can't understand why you covered it with plastic? I use cardboard and mulch but don't like the look of plastic and can't see a reason for it?

I have used fresh chicken manure around brassicas before and they thrived. Fresh manure is actually supposed to steal nitrogen from the soil to allow it to break down so if your plants look healthy, they probably are.

[ameno]

If the squash are doing fine, it'll probably be fine.
I planted two squash plants in my compost bin a month ago. The bin was still hot and only partially decomposed, but they seem to be loving it, growing even more vigorously than the ones in the ground.

Fresh manure is actually supposed to steal nitrogen from the soil to allow it to break down so if your plants look healthy, they probably are.

It's the opposite, actually. Fresh manure usually has too much nitrogen, especially if it's stable manure, so also includes the urine-soaked bedding (urine has a lot of nitrogen). About half of this nitrogen is given off as ammonia gas during the rotting process.

[burnie]

I think it's chipped wood that steals the nitrogen when it's composting, hence it is often used for paths.

[Chestnut]

I have never tried growing in manure quite this fresh, so I’m interested to hear how it goes.

In recent years I’ve used manure which has been ‘produced’ over the winter months with cattle in the barn. Delivered late Feb, I leave it to rot for 2-3 months and plant curcurbit seedlings into it in May, and they love it! This year tried some spinach and lettuce as a catch crop before the curcurbits were ready to go in, and they both worked well too (until I failed to keep up with their water requirements!)

[Plot70]

I took on a plot where a previous tenant had been watering couch grass with lawn greening fluid last December.
Being on heavy clay and very wet I built two large raised beds out of clay blocks and added about 8 to 10 barrows of couch grass roots and capped it with 8 inches or so of horse/wood chip manure leaving a slot in the top. I then added the contents of the shed latrine and sealed it off with one more barrow of manure.
I then added 4 inches of clay based topsoil and a mix of jazzy pumpkins and ordinary marrows plus a couple of butternut squashes.
I have marrows getting on for 6 inches long and pumpkins getting on for tennis ball size and hardly any couch grass.
My theory is that the squash roots will take what they want from the manure and then if they run out of that there is all the nutrients from the suffocated couch grass pinched from the soil underneath the manure.
The entire structure is 18 to 20 inches high with pumpkin vines trailing down the sides.
I am getting tempted to run it for a second season after looking at how well it is going.

[Nicos]

We're doing a bit of an experiment like this ourselves.
We've had great success growing squash in the compost heap previously so this year we've just bought a trailer load of organic cow bedding ( overwintering bedding)
Our pile is about 8' x 3' wide by 3'6" high and covered with a permeable piece of weed membrane we had spare. One butternut squash and one pumpkin planted on the top 4' apart .
The fact that it's pretty fresh is going to be interesting...will it bake the roots?....we'll see!

[SimpleSimon]

The black plastic is due to a pretty bad bindweed problem. There is multiple layers of thick cardboard down beneath the manure as well. These are 2 of the plants

https://photos.app.goo.gl/N1t1Rf59B3qh7K1R9

[Nicos]

Looking good!

[SimpleSimon]

Looking good!

The irony being that the 5 blue Hubbards I planted in 6 inches of 4 year old donkey manure with no straw/bedding or anything but manure have damaged stems and are doing terribly! Wondering if I should bury the stems where it's a little rotted. It's now dry and not rotting more but they are damaged.

[Nicos]

Not really sure!
Maybe keeping the stems dry with a fresh airflow might be the way to go?

[SimpleSimon]

Aye that's what I've done. They are bone dry and rough to the touch. Quite hard.

[Nicos]

I'll ask you when my plants rot!!!

[Plot70]

I was careful with my raised bed to make sure that the roots did not burn.
Below is a sealed compartment specially made to deliberately burn roots that has not had any couch grass re-grow.
I gave my plants a layer of ordinary top soil to start off in so that they can just grow there roots down into the manure and spent couch grass killing chamber below once its job is done.
If it is too strong for them they will not grow there roots very far down into it leaving enough for another season.
The plants are just left to grow there roots down as and when they need the nutrients.