We have only used those stall-sweepings (heavy with horse urine, btw) in areas where we did NOT want anything to grow.

It did a good job, in that application.

We HAVE used fresh horse manure with good effect. But it's just horse manure. Not wood-shavings.

I think the stuff you have there, I would compost.

Jeri

I don't want to be an alarmist because this type a herbicide is not commonly used in most situations. 2,4-D which is fine for compost is the overwhelming top choice by farmers for broad leaf weeds in most areas of the country.

So it may be prudent to test the compost on something tender like tomatoes before you put it on your roses. If it is a problem you can hang on to it for 2-3 years until the chemical breaks down or it will be wonderful on your lawn and around trees where it not only won't do damage but will help suppress the weeds! (The other option is to ask the place you got it if they know the source of their hay and what herbicides were used, although most won't know, some will.)

I compost the pine bedding and manure for 4 horses and it is wonderful stuff. Pine shavings can take a little longer to break down and some people don't like wood products because it can tie up available nitrogen until it is composted. However, what I've been doing in just using it as mulch. I've seen some studies that show the nitrogen problem is avoided if the wood is not actually buried and near the roots. When used like mulch as the compost breaks down and the worms get going nature will incorporate it into the soil as it is ready.

On pH I've found that it is higher before it is completely composted and as the composting nears completion becomes more neutral. (My Endless Summer hydrangea were pink this spring and summer after getting a big dose of compost, but started moving toward lavender/blue at the end of summer.)

Jeri

:-)

~Christopher

Some stables don't put lime to deodorize, you'll get a neutral pH in your composted horse manure. The stable here is indoor in cold zone 5a, so they put lots of lime to deodorize, which raised the pH to 7.5 when I got it in spring, and up to pH of 8 when I got it in late fall with accumulated lime. We get 40" of rain per year with rain water acidic around 5.6, so that balances out.

One University Extension recommended stables to put nitrogen fertilizer in their horse manure to get rid of it easier ... the woodchips or sawdust bedding once break down, depletes the soil of nitrogen. However, I saw tons of earthworms when I scraped off the horse manure, so soil organisms put back the nutrients via their waste.

Acid pH is a number below 7. Basic is a pH above 7.

She used fresh horse from local stables -- believe me, fresh. And we learned from her to trust it.

Jeri

If anyone is interested in more detailed info about compost from horse manure I wrote a long post a few months ago in the compost forum about stable management practices that might affect the resulting compost. You should be able to find it with a quick search...

If you click on the link below, and SCROLL DOWN to page 6, there's a tabulated data that lists pH of horse manure at 8.21, versus 4.00 of cow manure, and pH of 6.82 for composted worm casting. When you scroll down to page 6, you'll see the table. There's another document by Cornell University that tabulated pH data of nearby stables and found it to be highly alkaline due to the practice deodorizing with lime in cold-zones, with indoor stables.

I didn't apply horse manure to my roses in spring, was too busy potting 25+ new roses. In my zone 5a we have frost until late May, and the roses' color in cool spring were blah without horse manure.

I applied horse manure this fall, check out the deep colors of this bouquet picked today, Halloween Oct. 31. Top left big pink is Evelyn, top right yellow is Arthur Bell, middle orange-pink is Francis Blaise. Bottom row, from left to right: Mary Magdalene, dark pink Sonia Rykiel, red William Shakespeare 2000, and white Bolero.

Sherry

Being in SoCal, wouldn't it push the plants to put on more growth this time of year?

All the above are great for sandy soil, but NOT GOOD when mixed with heavy clay, it's like making pottery here ... they all glue up within a few months. I learned my lesson NEVER MIX horse manure with sticky clay here. The first time I did that, roses got brown salt-burn. Heavy clay glues up to horse manure, and the salt doesn't get washed out like sandy soil. The second time we rototilled horse manure with clay until it's fluffy and loose. One year later I came back to find big chunks of concrete in that spot. There's a discussion about lasagna method versus rototilling method to fix heavy clay in the Soil Forum. All the experienced farmers, chemist, soil scientists voted for lasagna method. I chipped in my mistakes as proof that lasagna method is best to fix heavy clay. Kim Rupert also said the lasagna method is best, his motto is "never bury garbage", which means never mix organics into clay soil ...it becomes fermented, then glue up like pottery.

Per Kippy's question of whether using horse manure in the fall would push for growth? No, horse manure is high in potassium, but poor in nitrogen, so it won't push growth. Potassium is needed for winterization, that's why the bag of lawn-fertilizer for fall is higher in potassium.

Pickering nursery said NOT TO WINTERIZE roses with horse manure since their roses are grafted on multiflora rootstocks, and the alkalinity in horse manure isn't best for multiflora. Soil holds moisture better than horse manure, and has less salt than horse manure, thus it's better to mound soil on top for winterization.

Horse manure is high in iron, potassium, and magnesium ... and deepens the colors of bloom. My neighbor stripped off his old sod, then top-dressed his lawn with mushroom compost (aka horse manure) mixed with clay. He has the deepest green lawn in the entire neighborhood, beats all the professional lawn-care companies. He doesn't have dandelions nor weeds problem either.

I regret NOT getting dirt mixed with mushroom compost since I was concerned about the alkalinity (it only costs $6 more). Then I tested my load of dirt ordered, and found its pH of 8, even higher than my neighbor's mushroom compost mixed with dirt. They put lime in the dirt to suppress weeds.

The horses we pick it up from eat alfalfa. Not pasture grass or hay.

Kippy, do you get the pure manure WITHOUT the bedding? Then it would have a higher nitrogen content with alfalfa. Only a certain chemical form of nitrogen can be utilized in cold weather, the organics don't break down during cold weather. I tested that Canadian paper on early fall fertilization by mounding soil mixed with alfalfa meal last fall, and got a great spring flush.

My soil is heavy clay, very alkaline, thus the effect of salt and alkalinity of horse manure is more stressful here. In addition, there's the practice of liming the stable in cold zone. Someone else with a loamy soil, less alkaline would have a better result with NON-LIMED pure horse manure without the brown bedding. The stable here informed me that they feed their horses with oats and alfalfa.

The other place, the stall part is covered, but open sides, corral and is full of sand.

I think it is likely the wood shavings that is making yours more similar to a mulch than a compost. A good compost should be a rich dark color that looks more like fluffy soil. Using the stuff we have has converted our hard clay (I could only get a shovel in it in the winter after rains and mom would break up the clods with a hammer) to soft easy to dig in soil that the veggies thrive in.

I am guessing the cold winters in Canada can change the way the compost cooks. I know I have chicken keeper gardening friends up north that can get their piles to stay warm enough to melt the snow off the top and steam. But it is something they work on. Here we do not have that issue so summer collections can sit in our bins with added leaves and chicken coop cleanings (we do use wood chips in there) and cook all fall and winter before it goes in the veggie garden. That is our "premium" compost and it mostly goes to the veggies.

I wanted to suggest to Strawberry, that it might be interesting to see if she gets better results from separating the horse manure from the wood chips. Not sure if the oats would sprout, but using it "fresh" we do get a few alfalfa plants, but they are easy to spot and easy to pull while small. I think we got maybe a dozen or two in several loads we used fresh.

On the other hand, I would only use the wood shavings like a bark mulch, but even then if they have been used to soak up the horse urine, not sure I would want to use unless it had sat and broken down.

Saldut, I think the bigger part of being organic is the spraying. We are pretty organic here too, but I use regular citrus feed and don't worry about it a minute.

I keep getting screwed on the CHM I've been getting. Last year it was all hay. Now this stuff. I'm just looking for a way to make CHM quickly out of this truckload of unrotted stuff.

Thanks, guys.

Sherry

Sherry

Of course, this is all nitrogen one has already purchased...

Debbie

You can still put down what you have as a mulch and it will compost in place, but from the minimal balls, you probably won't be getting much extra nitrogen. It should break down fine though ahd help the texture of whatever soil type you have.

I have a problem with armadillos tearing up the mulch, and everywhere they do that, weeds instantly pop up. It's enough of a problem, I'm considering loading a gun and sitting out all night waiting for them. I never thought I could kill a living thing, but I'm rapidly changing my mind. They used to only root up annuals and perennials, but recently they halfway uprooted two three-foot tall roses. The only thing that's stopping me is I'm afraid I might get carried away and accidentally shoot holes in my porch or something.

Yes. This is what I spread on my gardens as mulch 2-3 times a year. I generally use stuff that's 6 months to a year old, but hasn't completely composted. And yes, there are still identifiable "horse apples" in it, but they don't smell and crumble into dark rich looking stuff if I break them open.

"Stall leavings"--which probably means there is a wood product bedding material mixed in--that are not composted are probably best not turned into the soil as the wood may temporally "tie up" your nitrogen. The nitrogen tie up tends not to be a major factor when the wood is left on top of the soil. That said, when I make a new bed I turn very generous amounts of the stuff in with my clay soil. If I plan well I can let it sit for a few months (over winter) but I'm usually not that well organized and I haven't had any problems planting directly into the mix. I also have had zero issues with the combination of clay soil and horse manure compost.

The lack of rain you've had might mean that your manure is higher in salt, but I would think on sandy soil that isn't hard to remedy with some watering. I would also suspect that the lack of rain (and that you are smelling urine) means that there hasn't been much nitrogen loss either.

If you don't like the look of your compost as mulch a very thin layer of purchased mulch will neaten things up. I use some "fine bark fines" on top of the areas around my front door that I think looks very nice. In the back it's all compost. ;-)

One more thought: The green/brown ratio with horse manure and wood bedding products can lean to the brown side of things. Even the saw dust/manure mixtures that I have left over in my composting area that is 2 to 3 years old with no "apples" left in it does NOT have that dark brown, black, crumbly, loamy look to it. But even when I use the young 6 month old stuff as mulch it pretty much disappears into my garden soil after a few months. (Note that I have 50 inches a rain a year and hot humid summers!)

This new source is apparently renting RV and stable space to horse people who are in town for HITS, Ocala's winter horse shows. So maybe that's why it's so fresh. I got my second load this evening and will probably need 3 more since I'm being generous. It's very light and easier to put out than the other stuff which had sand in it. I didn't like that stuff - way too heavy. I emptied the truck today in a few hours.

I sprinkled the old organic fert (12-2-4 from turkey litter and feathermeal in torn bags for $2 each) on top and wet it down. I'm glad to hear that smelling urine/ammonia means there's still nitrogen in it. Once it was down the look of the compost was a little weird but not offensive, but I thought the "apples" might rot better if they were covered, so I put down a thin layer of the free wood chips I got from the tree trimmers.

Sherry

For what it's worth...the composted horse manure I've gotten has been very light. The business states on their website how long it is composted for, how high the heat it gets up to, etc. They say that it is made up off horse bedding. I could see the wood shavings and some smallish soft "apples." It has no smell. I don't have enough gardening experience, though, to know what effect it has. But, your picture looks very close to what the stuff I bought looks like.

Good luck with it, Anne