How To Use Horse Manure | Allotment Gardening Uk For Beginners | Organic Gardening

I get free horse poo in bags from local horse stables and put it on top of my garden beds like you do. Sometimes I lightly dig it in and sometimes I’ll layer grass clippings on top of the fresh manure. Sometimes I’ll put it on already growing beds (in this case I put on smaller amounts so it doesn’t burn the crop). All of these seem to work well, plants seem to grow stronger, healthier looking and more disease resistant. Worm life also improves significantly, they seem to be drawn to the raw horse poo. I only have a very small garden bed, probably quarter the size of your garden bed, unfortunately not a lot of land space in suburban living. Should mention, I never had any weed issues from this either, sometimes horse feed seeds germinate but I use this as mulch once cut down. Great video by the way.

I use horse and chicken manure composted as it tends to be very high in nitrogen and can burn plants fresh. Cow,sheep hog and other animals can be fine to use fresh. Your piles sitting out uncovered might be loosing some nitrogen due to rain leaching it out of the pile so plant burn my not be a problem for you.

You have an allotment , this means you have weeds. Horse manure may contain weed seeds but it is not going to be any worse than you already have. Weeds are part of having an allotment. Just use the manure as you like

ThNk you for sharing your thoughts! Great timing! I access to free aged horse manure for my 1 foot deep raised beds. I am trying to figure out if I can use all manure or do I need to mix some soil with it.

What if the horses get antibiotics, vacinations, fertilized hay, chemically treated feed, GMO feed and on and on?

Nice video, thanks. Love the pointy stick👍
Worth a mention that different manures have different properties . . As example, horse manure contains weed seeds whereas cow manure tends to not contain weed seeds. This is because horses have a single stomach so what they eat is processed in quite a simple fashion whereas cows have what is in effect a number of stomachs, so that they can take maximum benefit from their low nutrient diet of grass, and their more thorough digestive system eradicates most if not all weed seeds.
I don’t mind the weed seeds in horse manure because I don’t dig it in so they’re easy to pluck out of the typical residual mulch that top dressing with manure leaves behind. I wouldn’t dig it in though, because that would be planting weeds.
I recommend that you don’t dig manure in but that if you must then you should use cow manure rather than horse manure.
I also recommend that you should check your manure for persistent herbicides like aminopyralid or clopyralid – these are broad leaf herbicides that are used by idiot farmers to eradicate broadleaf weeds from pastures and grassland that will be harvested for hay (the same idiot farmers who’s love of profit has led to the almost total destruction of British wildlife over the last 60 years, leaving us as one of the most nature depleted countries in the world)
These hormonal herbicides don’t harm the livestock but they persist in their manure and can totally devastate an allotment plot.
I recommend that you read up on these herbicides and how to test for them. The method I use is to just plant a few beans in some soil with the manure added – if the herbicides are present the bean seedlings are murdered by it . .
I myself knew nothing about persistent hormonal herbicides until I lost a full crop of tomatoes due to using unchecked manure🙁
Anyhow, thanks again for putting your video up – all good advice and all gratefully received. You have a new subscriber👍

Here we go, I was waiting for demonic comments from so called scientific sources ( Manure harbours PATHOGENS ) Beware , disease, disability, be scared!! DEATH !!! From the so called officials of course. To the presenter, you're doing a wonderful job. 🤩

I put bought composted manure on my beds as a mulch ( not easy to get free manure in my area) i do it just to get that crispy layer on the soil as I find way less slug pressure on maured beds. I dont think they like to texture. Still testing the theory so will be doing the same this year. So I think that layer is a good thing.

The dried stuff on top is insulation saving you water. It rots down once you put the next layer on top.

you can always tell your king charles its ok to learn a bit about your life

Nice video as always

I've got a bay in my compost bay for manure, to rot down for a year before use.

I've also noticed the dry layer once the manure settles. But….. this year I have noticed way less slug damage. I'm starting to think the slugs hate going over the dry straw.

Hi Graeme, great videos mate. Have a google of "Herbicide Carryover in Hay, Manure, Compost and Grass Clippings" which I see some gardeners test their horse manure for. Keep up the great work!

All good stuff Graeme. We use sheep manure as we have a local source, compost it for 6 months to a year, and then just fork it in to the top layer of the veg beds. One thing to be aware of is if the sheep/horses/cows that the manure is from have been wormed. These chemicals can be residual in the manure and keep killing worms, and we all need earth worms. Keep up the great videos. 👍

I've just filled 10 beds……….each bed is 1m x 1.2mx 0.5, used 78 bags from the local stables, some of it's been there over 5 years so well rotted……i'm disabled so this is the only way for me, what most people can do in 2 hours takes me all day………get a builders bag and store it til next year.

As previous comment really. It needs to be rotted. This will ensure the straw type material is rotted down, also if done correctly, weeds seeds are destroyed by the heat generated by the composting process. After that, you may find that digging it in isn't too necessary. But you need to play the long game and leave it for a good 9 to 12 months before putting it on the beds . 👍

Everyone recommends that you should only use well rotted manure a year old and to put fresh manure on your compost heap for next year. I don't use any as I would need to buy it in bags I use seaweed my plot is two hundred yards from the beach and is free I put it on 4 _6 inches deep every November it works great its disappeared in to the soil by march ,April