Growing in fresh manure with lots of straw.

[ameno]

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.

Leave the rotten bits bare and above ground, but if you can, bury the stems further along at leaf nodes. Squash will naturally put down more roots at leaf nodes, and burying those sections encourages more rooting from them.

[Penellype]

I've had consistently excellent results from making a hotbed from fresh horse manure in January, growing spinach, lettuce and beetroot (carrots not so great) then when the spinach and lettuce finishes replacing it with tomatoes. Melons also grow well in a hotbed made in April/May - I had about 15 melons from tennis ball upto almost football size from 2 plants in one last year (covered with a glass growhouse).