Here is a link to the various nutrient levels of manure. I like to have the horse manure compost for about 2 or more years. It is like very black soil by then, and is easy to work into the garden. You don't have to wait that long to use it though, if you want to speed up the break down, pile it up like someone mentioned. Add water if it's dry weather, and turn it from time to time. I'd guess you have to use some judgement as to when it's broken down enough for you. If you are using straw for bedding, then it would break down faster than wood shavings. I do have some limited amount of chicken manure each year, and thats really great stuff.


http://www.greenbuddz.com/natu...

Thanks for the advise. Guess I was thinking about letting the stuff air out in the heat and then making a bed with it on top of my very, very heavy clay. I would be lucky to force a shovel into half way up the blade, after that its pick time to go any deeper. Was trying to come up with an easier way to go. I have a few months to go before I can plant a real garden. We are about 180 out from the rest of the country down here for our growing seasons. I can start sweet potatoes now until mid May then a few things in July and Aug. Main planting in Sep. Have been fudging with three sister plantings though using tires as hills with compost in the bottom and wood chips on top. Working so far. May try sunken mulch beds when I get the energy to dig them out. Getting old with a broken down body is no fun. The mind has all these wonderful projects, but the body just wont go along with the program. Its the old two steps forward, one back kinda thing. You all have fun while I scratch my head to see what I can come up with.

You can just lay it out where you want future growing beds too, Gunny. Takes longer, but the microbes and eventually worms, too, will at least begin the process of lightening that hard clay soil. Give 'em food...and they'll come. Once it gets a bit moister you can also stick the tines of a spading fork in the ground all around...as deep as you can. That'll help. Won't be all that long (probably) that you'll be able to dig it.
We have that hard clay here, too, and there are still some heavily compacted areas that I have to use a post hole auger to get a hole started, but it will grow good stuff...eventually.

Gunny said:
>> Guess I was thinking about letting the stuff air out in the heat and then making a bed with it on top of my very, very heavy clay. I would be lucky to force a shovel into half way up the blade, after that its pick time to go any deeper. Was trying to come up with an easier way to go.

A layer of compost on TOP of clay will help as fast as the compost dissolves and perks into the clay (slow motion). As the "juices" make the clay barely permerable to worms and roots, they will speed that up from glacially slow to winter-molasses slow.

The fast way to lighten clay is to MIX it with compost or manure (and fine bark and medium bark and grit and coarse sand and maybe even medium sand).


I chipped away at my clay with pick and mattock for a year, until someone reminded me that DRY clay is HARD, but moist clay is soft (and heavy). Just a little water is needed, though it might take a few days to soak down very far.

Excavate clay while fairly moist. Break it up while moist.

Once it is dry enough that it doesn't stick right back together, rub it through a 1/4" screen with any amendments to help keep it friable. I think that is the only thing sand is good for: It makes clay a little less sticky and easier to break up into small chunks.

But the solution to clay is the same as the solution tom 99% of all soil problems: compost, compost and more compost.

So it's smart to screen one load of clay, then one load of co0mpost, then one load of bark, so they mix without extra work.

My theory is that if I wasn't going to excavate, each year I would mix the compost as deep as I could, at least driving a pick through the soft layers into the hard layer, and prying out a chunk. Each year the soft layer will get deeper, due to worms, roots and sooluble organics perking down into the clay.

>> three sister plantings though using tires as hills with compost in the bottom and wood chips on top.

I agree. Wood chips are great as a TOP dressed mulch, not mixed into the soil.
The more compost you can mix INTO clay, the sooner it will turn into good soil.



>> Getting old with a broken down body is no fun. The mind has all these wonderful projects, but the body just wont go along with the program.

I agree, but it's better than the alternative. Unless the alternative involves local high school cheerleaders volunteering to do all the heavy work for you.

I had a five year plan 3-4 years ago. I've completed maybe 10-20% of that plan.

Now I have plans that I know will last longer than I will. It's good to know I won't run out of challenges!

My favorite fertilizer is compost that I make myself from available material.
Then compost I buy by the bag.

Cubic-yard-compost is expensive and mostly wood waste.
Someday I'll find a truck I can haul free biosolids in, and compost those further.

Until then, in raised beds, I'll use any cheap chemical fertilizer sparingly. Cheaper is better, for the same amount of N.

In containers, I'll use "whatever" soluble fertilizer I bought on sale, for example Peters or Miracle-Gro. Last year I went too far under-fertilizing containers, and Lobelia mostly just sat there, waiting for minerals.

Recently I found a bag of urea - extra-cheap nitrogen for my raised beds, 46-0-0, but you have to be VERY careful about spreading it thinly. I plan to dissolve it and spray very sparingly. The UPPER limit to avoid "burning" is 2 pounds per 1,000 sq feet, (8 grams per square yard), so I want to aim for 1/4 to 1/3 of that. Say 2 grams per square yard twice per year or 1 g/sq yard 4 times per year.

I also started with raw clay, but I have almost no free compost.


Besides burning small roots, the pH swings and concentrated ammonia are probably unpleasant for soil microbes. Hence using it very diluted and pre-dissolved. If it weren't for price, urea would probably be my LEAST favorite fertilizer.

We have a big farm and we use cow and chicken poop. works pretty good for us!

We use all compost and lots of rabbit manure. The rabbit manure can go straight on the garden, no composting needed