On 7/1/07 19:08, in article
ws.net, "Oxymel of Squill"
wrote:

how do you know when it's sufficiently rotted? I bring home a souvenir from
my riding lesson each week and stash it in a corner of the garden, I dug
some into next year's potato patch when it looked a bit discoloured, but I'm
really no conoisseur

snip

It goes dark and crumbly like good fruit cake. ;-) The original shape of
each dropping is lost.
I used to have a book called The Untidy Gardener and the author describes
asking someone to clean out the stables, saying she would be able to use the
manure on her flower beds. Next thing she knew, he'd chucked it straight
onto the beds from the stables and she was convinced all her plants would be
damaged. She describes seeing them 'waving helplessly' from above great
mounds of steaming manure. However, they survived, the winter and the worms
did their work and all was well, though it's not a recommended practice,
admittedly. And NB, these were flower beds, not veg beds.
--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
http://www.discoverdartmoor.co.uk/