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| I'm getting ready to clean all the loose dry manure out of a barn. Normally I would just pile it outside the barn, this time I would like to compost it for my backyard garden bed .
I was thinking about filling some trashbags half full with the manure, wetting it down, then poking some holes in the bags to allow air in, then just set them out in the sun for the rest of the summer. If we turned and watered the bags weekly would this make a good additive to my existing garden bed next spring? |
Follow-Up Postings:
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- Posted by toxcrusadr (My Page) on Thu, Jul 28, 11 at 13:13
| Yes, if you took care of them and there were enough air holes, it would make compost OK. But I have to wonder why you would want to go to that much trouble? Turning and opening and watering and closing all those bags seems like a lot of work. Manure will compost in a pile just as well, and is a lot easier to turn and water. Also, if there isn't much straw bedding or other high-carbon material mixed in, when the manure gets wet it may go anaerobic on you and start smelling from the high nitrogen content. This would be exacerbated by putting it in a plastic bag (air holes or no). Make sure you have enough browns in the pile. It will tell you if you don't. |
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| It would compost faster & better in a pile either open & covered with a tarp (cardboard, plastic, or burlap bags OR in a simple round bin with fencing & posts. A friend with horses piles her manure in a pit that was a garden pond & covers with brown tarps weighed down. They don't turn it, but if I come get it in the fall it's partially composted & ready to spread on vacant garden space covered then for use in spring. I've composted in bags before & it's really slow. The manure + bedding bags were already composted some and no longer smelling. In bags from Feb. - June & were about the same at the end. We had a cool wet spring that lasted until about mid-July. These are the different things we've had in bags. Once wet they are very heavy & difficult to move plus with the holes in them rip open. shredded mixed leaves I still use bags for the leaves to make leaf mold if I have more leaves than I can pile around the gardens, but I don't use bags for the other anymore. |
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- Posted by tn_gardening (My Page) on Sat, Jul 30, 11 at 7:54
| Not sure you need to water the manure. As the others indicated: it will decompose, but you might have better success by adding other material to the mix (and skipping the bags) |
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| If you have a bed not being used to grow plants at this time. Then cut the manure in, add some lime if your soil is 5.5 or lower in pH. That is it, you will be ready for Fall(late Sept. or Oct.) planting. Winter or Spring planting will fall outside of the 120 days till harvest, after cutting in manures, safety zone. I sheet compost the old way, before Lasagna layering gardening(nothing wrong with LG, I just use the other). We spread compost, shredded leaves,manures over a garden plot & cut it under. Then plant 60 to 150 day later. I have few pest problems & no fertilizer needs, other than lime in this Southern high acidic soil. |
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| What is the ratio of vegetative waste to the manure? To properly compost that manure you need 3 parts vegetative waste to 1 part manure. Putting the manure into plastic bags could create an environment more conducive to anaerobic digestion, more like a biodigester but not capturing the methane gas that could be generated. |
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