Dee wrote:
"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote in
u:

I wonder how many people here have ever killed anything with any
sort of fertiliser? I know I haven't.

Anyone want to put up their hand and tell us if you have and if
you did, what did you do?


I didn't, but my next-door neighbor did.

One spring we both went to a horse farm and loaded up our small
pickup beds with manure. The manure was maybe 1-3 months old (my
best guess - I used to work with horses).

I spread the manure in my veggie garden, keeping it at least 8 inches
away from the base of any plant. Most of it went around the edges
and in the paths of the garden. I then covered the paths with fresh
straw so I wouldn't be walking in manure. That summer (and the
following summer) I had the biggest, healthiest plants ever, giving
the most prolific yields ever, and the produce was the best and
tastiest that I ever received out of that garden.


Sounds right.

Meanwhile, my neighbor, using the same manure forked from the same
pile, spread it at the base of all his plants. In another part of
his garden where he had not yet planted anything, he tilled the
manure into the soil and then a week or so later put in more plants.
That summer he lost more than half the garden. The plants growing in
the tilled area died first, rather quickly, within a month or so.
The plants that had manure at their base struggled the entire summer
to live, either producing very little or nothing, and then died a
long drawn-out death.

Dee

This is entirely at odds with my experience. I cannot picture 1-3 month old
horse manure doing this. Once it has rotted for a few months you can plant
straight into it, I have a very vigorous self-seeded pumpkin growing in the
manure pile right now. I would say the neighbour added something else (like
a chemfert) and didn't tell you.

David