[Elcie]

Hi everyone, hope you can help.

I know that squash like a fertile soil and I have a pile of well rotted horse manure left over.  Can I plant the squash (winter, summer and butternut) straight into that?  Of is that too fertile!!

[Jay Dubya]

Hi, i dig a hole about a foot cube fill it with your manure put the spoil back over as a mound and plant on top.

[mumofstig]

Make a shallow hole... bung in some manure heap the soil back over it and plant in the top Perfick

[Stripey_cat]

Yes you can.  A neighbour did it by accident and got 15' squash vines!  You'd be best off putting a bit of soil around the transplant just to get it acclimatised, but so long as the manure is well rotted and you keep it wet (heaps can dry out quickly, especially on concrete) the squash will love it.

[Kristen]

I'm with Stripey Cat. Planting Squash, Courgettes, etc. into a muck heap will give fantastic growth and crops - only difficulty is watering - and my preference would be to dig a hole, fill with muck, and grow the Squash / Courgette etc. there

[Elcie]

Excellent news.  I didn't want to leave it just sat at the front of the plot waiting for next year.  Figure if I can get some use then even better.  I grow quite a lot of stuff in containers so planning on making a bigger and bigger mound over the years for the squash.  This year it will be more manure than soil but I will make sure I put some soil around the transplanted seedling at the start.  Will keep you posted and take some pics when I remember!