"George.com" wrote in message
...

"Jack" wrote in message
...

"George.com" wrote

what do you mean by not ready until september? Is it hot composting at
present or is it cold?

If it has completely cooled down after a nice roast it can most likely
be
used now.

Hi, Rob, thanks for your reply. I got the manure in mid-September, and
apparently it was fresh. It had lots of straw and wood chips in it, and
the
supplier said it needed to be stacked for a year. It's piled up,
uncovered,
about 3 feet high. I've never seen any steam off it and it's always
felt
cold. It's actually quite crumbly, although some parts of it are still
recognisable as horse poop.

I've had conflicting advice because some people say it should be stacked
for
a year, whereas some people say to chuck it on now and let the worms
pull
it
down. Being a bit squeamish about germs and diseases and whatnot, I'm
nervous about using it so soon on my allotment.

so say its 3-4 odd months old and has been exposed to an autumn and early
winter. Best way to check it out is with a shovel and dig away at it. See
if
the inside is warm and dry, if so it may have hot composted within. Maybe
try an smaller pile with some high nitrogen additives like grass clippings
or coffee grounds and see if it heats up. I say that as I had a pile of
horse poop I wanted to compost quickly. I mixed it with grass and coffee
and
watered it/soaked it with **** and after a few days it heated right up.
After a cooling I mulched it across my garden. That was 3 odd months ago
and
a spring and soil bacteria did the rest.

Depends when you want to plant. Applying it now and leaving it over winter
and early spring for 3 odd months should see it broken down quite nicely
in
the soil and it will start to have an impact on the soil structure and
health. If your soil is rubbish it will take a while for manures/compost
to
really make a difference. I threw 2 trailer loads on horse poop in to
raised
garden back in April. It went through the 1/2 half of autumn, winter and
early spring and I planted in to it late september with no problems.

You may want to wait closer to planting to make the most of the manure as
a
fertiliser (ie keep it out of the rain) you could always plough some
compost
in to the soil. Provided the compost is not fresh it should be ok to use.
My
compost is never fine when I use it. If I wanted to wait 3 years maybe it
would be jowever it always has twigs and the odd matted leaf or clumps of
matter still being eaten by worms. As a mulch it has always gone fine and
broken down fairly quickly once used. The stuff you buy in bags (at least
the stuff I do) comes with hunks of pine bark (nitrogen stabilised they
call
it) in it and that is supposedly finished compost. If I want to use
compost
with twig and other partially decomposed organic matter may as well use
what
is cheap, my own.

If you want to leave the compost for a while but are itching to dig
organic
matter in to the gardens try finding some free green mulch (like fine tree
prunings) or some saw dust (if someone has chopped down a tree). I have
used
a mixture of aged saw dust (untreated and free from a local saw mill) with
some cat shit supplied by my mogs and coffee grounds on gardens and in a
few
weeks it was nicely mixed together.

rob

Jack
You may find this chart interesting, it tracks the hot composting process of
horse poop (3 cubic yards whatever that is in metres). It outlines
temperatures, periods for turning, and the changes in life amongst the pile.
After 100 odd days the pile is complete. Not absolutely necessary to have
finished useable manure compost/humus however it does lay the process out in
a manner I have not seen before.
rob
http://www.soilandhealth.org/06clipf...stng.chrt.html