[Yana]

I'm easily confused and this is one example ...
I thought that compost and manure are two entirely different things. That is, compost comes from decomposed waste be it green or brown material and that manure well....... We all know where that comes from 
So I keep three bins at the lottie. One with this years green and brown waste to be used in a years time and one that has manure rotting away and gets topped up when deliveries of manure are made to the site. The third bin is for filling when the first compost bin is full at the end of each year (around November time).
However, I have been told that I should mix layers of green, brown and manure together in one bin and leave the whole lot to decompose/rot and this can be used all over the plot. I thought that roots shouldn't have manure so that's why I've kept it separate or is it manure that isn't well rotted that is the problem and I can mix everything together?? 

[Aled]

Hi Yana, i am no expert at this, but i know for certain you can put cow and horse manure in the compost bin. Unless i'm mistaken it can help speed up the process. (Others with more experience please add)
Yana, I hope you don't mind me adding a question but can you add well rotted horse manure with compost from the bin, just before adding to the soil?
Cheers
Aled

[Kristen]

Depends

Manure can be added to the compost heap, and will help accelerate it - particularly if fresh and full or urine.  You could pee on the heap instead, as an accelerator ...

I prefer to keep the manure in a separate heap, and then spread it as a mulch - separately from the compost I use.

However, I also mix manure and compost, in particular I replace the "soil" in the greenhouse borders, annually, with 50:50 Compost Heap and Manure. I don't have time/energy to make a really good/hot compost heap, so mine sits in a pile for a year and at the end is quite rough. That's what I mix 50:50 with manure, around about now, and put in the greenhouse border over winter.  I turn it a few times [with a Mantis] during autumn/spring to encourage weed seeds to germinate, and by next Autumn the "spent" soil will have become really fine and I then use it as a top dressing for my Asparagus bed and also to pot up Dahlias etc. in the spring to kick start them for the new season.

[goodtogrow]

Half the problem, and therefore all of the confusion, arises from what we mean by 'manure'.

100% dung, straight from the animal's bottom?  Or a mixture of faeces and bedding, enriched with the animal's wee?

Pure dung I keep separate, but a mixture of dung and bedding, is, to all intents and purposes, the same as a green and brown compost mix - and people will now say but urea (wee) is too strong so we must treat it with extreme care.

I say not in the quantities in which it occurs in bedding.  I go on to say mix bedding and dung with your compost.
The result is a diverse source of plant nutrition.  Our range of plants want a diverse range, because their own needs are diverse.  And that such a mix has no single nutrient so high as to bother anything.  I regard such a mix as the optimum mix for everything, all the time, no exceptions.

If we look for problems we shall surely find them.  If we don't look, Lo! none to be seen anywhere!

Best wishes

Tom

[gremlin]

I tend to throw it all in together- green, brown, manure, leaves, twigs, couch grass, seeds, old bamboo canes, string. I don't put in bindweed, horsetail or horseraddish roots or soil.  I'm undecided about slug-destroyed spuds as recycling spuds might carry disease.

Given enough time, say a year, it all turns to coarse compost which I dig in.  I don't use any accelerator, but might pour on a bucket of water if it feels dry.

I think the advice we are given might be about trying to make the perfect fast-acting compost heap to produce perfect compost in a couple of months.

It there is a secret it might be about having a big enough heap, a minimum of 1m x 1m x 1m. 
The plastic Daleks dont do it for me.

Fresh manure is supposed to burn plant roots, but I have never tested it for myself.

[surbie100]

After reading up on here and consulting my nearest Old Boy at the plots, I've put 3 barrows of manure (dung, chicken poo + sawdust) into my dalek, together with chopped up plants & nettles from the plot, but no other weeds. It heated to a nice, steamy temperature and keeps reducing in volume. I'm hoping for lovely compost for use next summer, when it will have had about a year to rot.

[Yana]

Hi Yana, i am no expert at this, but i know for certain you can put cow and horse manure in the compost bin. Unless i'm mistaken it can help speed up the process. (Others with more experience please add)
Yana, I hope you don't mind me adding a question but can you add well rotted horse manure with compost from the bin, just before adding to the soil?
Cheers
Aled

Hi Aled
I can do that no problem. My concern is more that manure supposedly makes roots fork?? Or is that only the fresh stuff?

[Aled]

John Harrisons book grow your own has a very good section on composting in it.
Sorry dont know about root forks (being honest here)
Cheers
Aled

[Yana]

John Harrisons book grow your own has a very good section on composting in it.
Sorry dont know about root forks (being honest here)
Cheers
Aled

As usual I don't explain things completely. Sorry.
What I meant was that I had read that manure will make parsnips, carrots and the like fork instead of being one single root so they end up with multiple legs (if that makes sense).

[surbie100]

There's a good thread on it here: http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=91004.0

[Aled]

Yana have a look at the link it describes things well.
Cheers
Aled

[compostqueen]

Carrots and parsnips are best grown without muck near them as they fork in rich soil or one with stones in

I keep my manure separate from my rotting plant material

You can however, add a bit of poo to your compostings as it works as an activator

[Yana]

Now I get it.  the link was really useful.
Thanks everyone.

[Aled]

Yana it was a pleasure to read peoples responses, so do i.
Thanks all.
aled