Is Fresh Manure Good Fertilizer for the Garden? - FHC Q & A
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- Опубликовано: 7 фев 2025
- If you ask most folks if livestock manure is good for the garden, they’ll say “YES”. So are vegetables plants in your garden somehow digesting that livestock manure? And should you add fresh livestock manure directly to the garden? Pa Mac delves into this question and presents answers about wisely using livestock manure as a fertilizer amendment in the garden.
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Great video, always precise and spot on. Our family farm, we always spread the manure, fresh or composted, as early in the late summer or fall as possible on the wheat stubble. Then shallow "one way" or disc. Then after monsoon or fall rains in the very late fall, end of October, early November would plow. The manure mixed with the wheat straw or crop residue. By spring planting the ground was friable and ready for beans. Also cleaned out the chicken house in the fall and it went on the garden, of course we "boys" had to do it by hand. Chicken manure is very "hot", if you put it fresh or even from the litter on the chicken house floor it will burn your plants. With the manure in the ground, it seems the 7-8 months over late fall, winter and spring, whether fresh or composted always did the trick. We always had fertile soils.
Gotta do what you gotta do. I really love your older high-effort videos, though. True art.
Horse manure has same herbicides concerns , and in addition pharmaceutical treatments they use with horses are also found in manure. This was pointed out to me by a veterinarian.
Feed the earth with organic materials regularly and yearly.
Mulch mulch and then mulch .
Much fewer weeds , even soil temperatures , and alot less watering . I had a very dry summer last year and the area with mulch had very nice soft soil . I went to roto till area 15ft away and the soil was like cement.
As pa Mac says . . . It takes a little bit of time. However will Break down quickly, 1 season.
Good luck !
Thank you for information, hadn’t ever thought about herbicide contamination in hay.
There is some lovely looking soil under that corn plant you pulled up. Congrats on all the effort that took!
Always great articulation, thanks for being a consistent source.
My grand parents always used grass clippings, leaves then covered with newspaper. What many fail to understand about their soil, take soil samples, take that into your local Ag office. Just plain old manure may not always be the answer needed to one's garden.
Yes, too much manure, garden will burn up. We'd spread in the fall or shortly after everything done picked/harvested, let that lay over winter. Come spring, plow it under. Take grass clippings, leaves and again, cover with newspaper. For a few family members who were coffee drinkers, mixed in the coffee grinds. There are plenty of "natural" fertilizers available to everyone if they know how to collect it and utilize it correctly.
Also, we learned the hard way, about every 7yrs, we'd have to spread lime, PH level's can really mess with your garden as well.
Great video as always, cheers :)
I have found that plowing it under causes the soil not to be as good over the long run.
I cover put manure down in the fall and cover with anything i can. Leaves are pretty abundant so i use those. Then there is nothing to plow in the spring, just move the leaves and plant. Sometimes i do just leaves.
I personally think its a combination of plants and animal waste that makes a good soil compost.
The most important thing is to believe on Jesus Christ. Then you can look at how God created everything and copy what He does. He makes things grow and He doesnt till. He covers everything and leaves nothing bare.
Back to eden has been good for me
Great video as always. For us our soill is often thick and clumpy,doesn't drain well. We keep a rotating herd of meat rabbits and I save up some of their manure along with my quails manure and till it under in the fall. On top of that I add some halfway broken down chicken manure,wood ash,and mulched leaves. I then do my spring tilling. Seems ok,I've never seen any adverse effects. Over the years of amending the soil this way and adding some sand to help break up the soil some its improved quite a bit. My grandmother kept a good sized garden at a friends river bottom property when I was growing up. She always had a great harvest,and aside from compost tea I never knew of her adding anything.
Good stuff Mac thanks!
Great episode. Thank you for making these.
Thanks for another fine video, Pa Mac!❤
In the UK, aminopyralid and clopyralid are the herbicides in question.
My neighbor has dairy cows. I can only get some manure in the winter because they are inside and are grazing in the warm season and fertilizing the fields. I had a load delivered in November and I will move it to my compost area in the spring. I guess I will use it next fall
Killin' it, Pa Mac! Killin' it!
Thank you, Dan.
Love the simpler version and the vertical flowers are so pretty!
Very concise and entertaining videos. I just subscribed and have started watching from your very beginning. Love your humour. One small request. Did you make a follow up video on your apple harvest and pie making? The countdown was only on two vids planting and mulching your new apple trees. Curious if you made any others with regards to the apple trees. Thanks and keep up your great work.
Thanks for watchin' and subscribin', wizebuck!
And yes, here's another apple update video: ruclips.net/video/ShsNKCyK-Oo/видео.html
(also stay tuned for a bulletin on prunin' apple trees coming up soon)
if you're buying hay instead of growing your own for feed be careful. Many hay farmers use herbicides to kill non grasses in their fields and those herbicides pass through the horses and cows and stay in the manure and will affect your crop.
Thanks Mr Mac for another great vid.
That is what I was thinking when he said the leaves curled and didn't even look like a tomato plant. Your exactly right. If this happens I heard to lime the soil and till it often. The sunlight somehow breaks down the herbicide
I've been using it both ways my whole life. You will have a hard time getting enough fresh manure on there to "burn" anything, at least where I'm at. Maybe it's just having an eye for what is enough and what is too much. All the big dairy and pig farms use fresh manure on their corn fields. Pretty much every year we have a tomato grow up on a pile of manure or compost that grows better than what I've planted on purpose.
You just gotta know what you can plant and how to use it.
I wouldn't use fresh manure in squash and other low growing vegetables, or potatoes not for fear of burning the plant but because you don't wanna be eating fresh poo juice. But it's fine to use for taller stuff like corn that doesn't fruit near the poo.
What would you call "fresh" manure? Right out of the cow, or shortly thereafter? A neighbor has piles of cow manure, about 5' tall that has been there for at least a year. Would this be composted or considered fresh as it's in a big pile?
That would be composted, Roy, and should be ready for use on the field or garden. Thanks for watchin'!
Fresh manure is what the old timers used for their hot houses .
sir you are amazing. we have started a new orchard plot. we have lots of cow manure, as we winter cows. so plot is 50 by 80 feet. now me being me I dug down 10 feet and mixed raw manure in and ended up 5 feet above ground level. that was 2 years ago. the orchard is beside cow yard and did a trench from cow yard into orchard. by doing this the tree roots will have easy going for first 10 feet and will get liquid feed from cow yard. side not the cows are chemical free as in only get medicine when needed and get fed clean chemical free feed. before we get trees we will be doing soil testing to make sure its not still to hot. do you know what mushrooms would be good to be in a orchard. we plan on moving a lot of existing plants into orchard area as well. may be a crazy idea but we are in the swamp and have water issues so this will get plants a bit higher.
My husband seriously discouraged me from planting a wisteria vine in the yard due to my occasional lack of attention, fearing it would take over. "And ya just can't kill them thangs!" I persistent finally broke down his reservations. A small 3' vine was procured from a niece and all was well. ... until the day husband was building harness for one of our horses, having her tied under a shade tree in the yard for several hours whilst he custom fit her. When he was finished, there was, of course, manure where she'd been standing. He >said< it was out of the kindness of his heart that he put that little bit of horse manure in a circle about 3" around my wisteria vine ... that nothing would kill. 🤨 ... 2 days later I was accusing children of doing something to kill my wisteria when an extremely perplexed husband walked up. 😳 He objected that horse manure wasn't strong enough to kill anything and nothing could kill wisteria anyhow! ... yup. After that, we would both tell people to get rid of unwanted wisteria ... use horse manure. It's quick & final!
(Yes, husband apologized profusely, and I used it as a "gotcha joke" for years after! 🤭)
Great information Pa Mac. Something a new comer should pay attention too and get proper Gardening Preparation Care before plowing for their gardens. Fred.
I've used it for 40 years. I put my plants into fresh manure every year and never have i had a problem.
We always put fresh cow manure on garden in spring and tilled in plus 10-10-10 always had a huge crop
I do have a question, every year we butcher deer and I save the carcasses and put them on a brush pile. After I burn that down I take the ashes and till them into the garden. Is this a form of bone meal? Thanks Ken.
By definition its not meal because its not ground up, but its got to be slowly releasing phosphorous and calcium over time! I do something similar without the burning. Sometimes the bones end up in the hot compost and those seem to be ready to crumble more quickly than those that weren't composted.
@rifraf262 they crumble to a fine powder when I run the tiller over them.
Grok Says:
The word "herbicide" is pronounced as:
HER-buh-side
Here's the breakdown:
HER sounds like the word "her."
buh is a short, unstressed syllable, similar to the "u" in "but."
side sounds like "side" in "beside."
This pronunciation applies in standard American English. Remember, pronunciation can slightly vary with accents, but this is the commonly accepted way to say it.
Do you have a video showing how you rotate your animals and gardens etc. year after year? :)
Washington and Jefferson would not be appalled, they would love it. They were both farmers! 😁
Agreed!
(I meant they would be appalled it was zoned against chickens.)
Oh, I thought you meant they would be appalled if you were president! My mistake. I'll vote for ya!
I live in alaska, we have a huge problem with slugs, they are in the native soil and will eat everything we plant! We've solved this by using bought soil and raised beds, but I have 5 acres of good soil that I can't use because of these slugs, I've tried beer traps and all the other tricks but they are prolific, any suggestions would be welcomed.
If you use lawn clippings for compost make sure they are not using a weed and feed fertilizer it will turn your green garden into a moon scape very quickly and it will take a long while to recover i found out by accident the hard way
Plants can only absorb nutrients in a dissolved form. Before your plants can absorb nutrients they need to be able to pass through a very fine filter. If you can see a particle of something that doesn't dissolve it isn't available. The exception is urine (which can pass through a fine filter) and is almost immediately available. "manure" might mean solids, it might mean absorbent bedding + solids + urine
2:20 "Leaves curled up wierd looking and plant didnt even look like a tomato plant..."
Where did you get your manure? This sounds like GRAZON. Let that person know!
28 comments and I'm the first one to tell you the manure was poison?
This manmade stuff is strangling life.
Fresh manure is not the greatest idea to plant in. My widowed aunt had a steer farm, about 300 head, they tended the manure piles and then topped off the fields that they were letting go fallow for winter. They always had bumper crops of corn and grain that went for feed for the steers.
Yes! The Pathogens from the fresh manure are dangerous! I only use composted manure but I noticed the Amish use fresh horse manure. And, yes, I would vote for Pa Mac for President, but decent men are not allowed to serve....because they are not for sale.
Yes it is good fertilizer and the higher the percent of hay in their diet the better it does for a garden. The only question is a theoretical risk of disease. The reasonable course would be to not grow root crops on a bed that got fresh manure.
Dry manure is okay. Wet manure is bad. Only apply before planting and let it sit after tilling it in. The very best method is add it in the compost pile through the year and apply in the late winter.
It's 'erbal, Herb.
He used a lot of euphemisms, so here’s the TLDR. The worms and pill bugs and such turn manure into good soil, because they eat the manure and poop it out as their own manure. Hope you weren’t eating dinner.
My husband went to n. Korea and noticed them using fresh human excrement in their crop fields. They have no stores from which to buy composted manure, and few livestock from which to get enough. They do not give it any time to age.
Back in the 70's there was a group of Hippies kind of homesteading down the road from our farm. They pooped in there garden till we started giving them cow manure.
I think it’s fine as long as they stomp it down with their feet a little
Can we say Ecoli?
Had a friend years ago that was Chinese and his mom did the same.....btw..he did not eat from the garden😅
@elizabethjohnson475 - when I was a youngster (late 60's now) there was a pick your own strawberry field that was very popular. Then I heard on the news they had used human excrement on the fields. Anyway once word got out, it no longer had customers which led to it's failure.