[Gruntfuttock]

Horse Manure
I hope this is the right place for this subject.
Three years ago a 'friend' told me about a stables that put plastic bags of horse manure out for anyone to help themselves. I built a doube 2 M cubed slated compost bin and filled one side up with manure. The manure was layered with sulphate of ammonia and garden soil. I then left it for 2 years apart from the odd aggitaion to even things out.
When it was finally composted I spread it over my veg. patch and rotovated it in.
I now have the most wonderful selection of weeds. Deadly Nightshade, nettles, you name it I have it. The spuds did very well, when I could find them.
Due to a back that no longer functions without considerable pain I am not into weeding as I should be. I think what happened was that not enough heat was generated to kill he seeds that had pased through the horse. Can anyone confirm this?

[JayG]

Absolutely!

In theory a well made compost heap will heat up enough to kill most weed seeds, but in practice many people just chuck stuff onto the heap as and when they have the material, so it never gets hot enough.

Remedy of course is not to compost weed seeds in such circumstances, although even things which aren't normally considered to be weeds (like tomato and squash seeds) can prove to be a bit of a nuisance!

[Topscaff]

I think it's inevitable that you will get weeds when using manure unless the manure heap was turned like the compost should be to generate the heat needed to kill the weed seeds and I can't see the stable owner doing this just for someone to put on there garden  looks like a bad back until you get rid of the weeds  Mike

[Babstreefern]

My grandad never, ever put on manure because of this happening.  Horses will graze anything, so inevitably you will get weeds.  What he did was to put sacks full of manure and drop them in water barrels for weeks, and then water his veg - voila, no weeds from that source

[Trillium]

Gruntfuttock, next time you make your manure heap, use a thermometer to make sure you're getting the heat. It should actually be steaming away. A mix of materials and some dampness, along with frequent turning would do it.

with your bad back, the latter will be a problem.

I too get free manure, but chicken manure straight out of the big chicken houses. And I have the finest crop of weeds you can imagine. So, how do cooped chickens get hold of weeds? No idea.  It seems to be part of the whole cycle. Perhaps mulching your crops heavily might help control the weeds.

[Headgardener22]

Are you sure the weeds are new to the plot, introduced by your manure and not just growing well because the ground is more fertile?

I bought mushroom compost this year rather than cow manure. It has the benefit of being weedfree (unless you count mushrooms as weeds) but is more expensive.

[Growster...]

Could also be something to do with rotovating, which churns seeds and shoots like nettles and couch, fat hen etc, and trebles the weed growth.

Horse manure can get almost too hot to handle in a good, well built bin such as you're describing, so I would suggest that after two years, any seeds of annual weeds would have left this mortal coil...