I would be very concerned about weed seeds from horse manure. Apparently horses let far more viable seeds through than cows. Or maybe it's the diet, I don't remember. But you are likely to have a full garden of whatevers without planting anything...

Is your yard sloped at all? What's the chance of erosion happening on all that bare composted ground during the winter rains and snows? Some wood chips would be good for that, as long as you're not planning to till the entire thing in the spring, which would bury the wood chips, not a good idea.

Other than that, the concept sounds great.

I would talk to your source of manure and inquire about the horse's feed to see if there is any possibility that the feed or beeding has been sprayed with an herbicide at all. I went to a friend's house and shovelled free manure into my truck for my veggie garden. My friend was not aware that the horses feed had been sprayed with an herbicide that can persist even after coming from the back-end of a horse, aging in a pile and then aging further in a garden bed. This will take much time and/or money for me to remediate. Not to mention, no much longed for tomato sauce.

Before I learned this lesson, I obtained more manure from a neighbor and I will absolutely be performing a bio-assay test to determine if this manure is contaminated before I spread it on my gardens.

tishtoshnm - what a DOWNER! i'd call that a disaster...i'm sorry you have to deal with that. i never would have thought that could happen. how did you find this out? did nothing grow when you spread it?

toxcrusadr - thank you, i will have to think about the seeds. i think maybe i will use some manure with a heavy, heavy paper/cardboard layer and then a thicker top layer. but like i said, the cost is an issue. i don't plan on tilling. my yard is close to dead flat, so i don't have to worry about erosion.

ah, decisions...decisions...

It was absolutely heart breaking. The herbicide only works on certain plants so those that were sensitive to it showed deformities and the fruit was severely deformed. In the vegetable world it affects legumes, night shades and things in the sunflower family. Other areas where we spread it with perennials did not do too bad but it did adversely affect dahlias. I had started a thread on here called contaminated soil where people included links on how to test for the herbicide.

One thing you might consider is whether or not your plants will even need the horse manure if you are planting natives. My soil and climate varies greatly from yours but one danger with native plants for me can be over improving the soil. Not all plants benefit from manure. For cost effectiveness, we obtain as many coffee ground as we can from Starbucks to add to areas where we plan to build the soil as well as grass (as long as we know it has not been sprayed), leaves, whatever we can get our hands on. Good luck!

http://ohioline.osu.edu/aex-fact/pdf/0714.pdf

Any organic veg grower needs to take time to read and understand the OSU PAPER. Trust me on this.

Larry

I second Larry and add "Any organic veg grower and composter needs to take time......"

Be very aware of your source of compost feedstocks or garden amendments.

Lloyd

Larry, thanks for that link. WOW. I learned a BUNCH.

tishtoshnm - i do have to be careful about making the soil too rich for natives. given what i am starting with (which has been tested and shows very little organic matter) i figure i can't really go too wrong. plus, the place gets so very dry and hardpack i figure i can't go too wrong in figuring im starting from zero. plus, if i really overthink it, i'll drive myself too crazy!

Waterfront