"Tish" wrote in message

I, unfortunately, learned the hard way that very fresh horse manure
is
enough to burn plants to death - I'm the only person I know who can
kill rhubarb!

How on earth did you do that? By that I mean what did you do with the
horse poop to manage to kill rhubarb?

The main reason I've heard for composting horse poo before using it
on
the garden is weed seeds. Horses are not ruminants, like cattle,
sheep and goats, and the horse gut processes food more quickly and
less efficiently than a ruminant gut. As a result, a lot more weed
seeds get through in viable condition.

Have you tried putting mulch on top of the poop? I find this stops
most weeds.

I also find that because the poop is such a wonderful soil
conditioner, I now find weeding a horse pooped bed a pleasure because
the soil becomes so friable and the weeds are extremely easy to
remove. This wasn't the case before I started using horse poop
regularly. I now find that I can pull out all weeds in the
established beds in my usual gentle mornings walk around the garden.
I used to hate weeding but now the horse poop treatment combined with
the morning inspection tour with the coffee mug in hand is enough for
all but the wild and still undeveloped parts of my garden.