Dung ho!

Few things get organic gardeners as excited as a good pile of aged animal manure. If you’re not yet a connoisseur of manure, think of it as processed organic matter that has already begun decomposing. It does wonders for soil health and plant growth.

You can add the droppings of many different farm (and sometimes wild) animals to your garden, giving the soil all the benefits of organic matter plus a little higher boost of the N-P-K nutrients. (See: Nutrients Plants Need) Like a fine wine, however, manure is best aged. Fresh manure may be too potent for tender plants and can contain bacteria that make people sick. It’s a good idea to let manure age for six months to a year before using, or you can compost it (See: Materials for your Compost Pile). If you add fresh manure to your garden in the fall and mix it into the soil, it will be ready for planting in the spring.

Keep these rules in mind when using manures:

• Compost fresh manures before using. Mix into a compost pile and age before using or spread on the garden and work into the soil at least a month before planting.
• Select manure from the oldest pile at the farm. Many farm manure piles contain a lot of additional organic matter such as sawdust from horse or chicken bedding. Manure from the oldest pile probably has naturally decomposed this bedding the most and can be used directly on your garden.
• Use bagged manures. They’re usually composted and ready to use. If you need a lot of manure, however, buying bags can be costly.
• Apply composted manure annually. In general, add a 2- to 3-inch layer of manure to garden beds and around perennial plants at least once a year.

Cat, dog, pig, and human manures have no place in composting. They can carry diseases that affect humans, and so you should never use them in your garden.

Green Manure

Another great way to get organic matter into your garden is to grow your own. Green manures are plants that you grow specifically to cut down and mix into the soil to add organic matter and nutrients. Farm-supply stores and mail-order catalogs usually offer the widest selection of green manures, but many garden centers sell the common ones. The following plants are some of the valuable green manures that you can grow in your garden:

• Alfalfa
• Annual ryegrass
• Barley
• Buckwheat
• Cowpeas
• Crimson clover
• Fava beans
• Hairy vetch
• Oats
• Winter rye
• Winter wheat

To grow green manure, broadcast (apply uniformly) the seed as you would for a lawn and let the crop grow through the gardening season. If you want to prevent the plants from returning next season, turn the plants under the soil before they produce seeds,. In addition to adding organic matter, green manures

• Control erosion: Hardy crops, such as winter rye and wheat, cover the soil over the dormant season, preventing wind and rain from eroding precious topsoil.
• Loosen compacted soils: Some green manures, such as alfalfa, have aggressive roots, which can grow 3 feet deep into the soil. They break up compacted soils and even “mine” nutrients deep in the soil, bringing them to the surface where other plants can use them.
• Balance nutrients: Some green manures, such as clover, vetch, peas, and beans, are legumes, which means that they have the unique ability to take nitrogen from the air and make it available to plants — often in the same year.  ....read more