Aged horse manure for my veggies???

I just found a wonderful stable/riding school near my home that gives away any and all the aged manure I could ever want (need).
My question is, can I plant directly in this wonderful crumbly dirt looking compost or does it HAVE to be mixed with other things (soil)? Smells like dirt, looks like dirt, feels like dirt....so is it now dirt? LOL I was told it is well over a year old.
Is this good to plant tomatos, squash, pole beans, cucumbers, and pepers in?

i would say use away. all my raised beds are filled with that black gold. everything grows like crazy so be careful lol.

Girl, that's the answer I wanted to hear. :-) Yippy!!!
I'm just afraid of what it might do to my zuccinni LOL

Riker, compost is exactly that, compost. You should not plant directly in it, you should mix it in your soil. Another thing, the picture i'm getting is that you have a pile of year old horse manure and you want to plant directly in this pile, I assume spread out somewhat. If you dont' turn the soil beneath, where will your roots go. You should really turn it into your soil. "Black Gold" is horse manure that has been composted for much longer than a year. Beware, directly planting could ruin your plants. Kathy

I went back and read Farm's post again. With raised beds, I assuming they've already worked the soil and have worked the "Black Gold" into their soil.

This message was edited May 9, 2004 12:28 PM

when we made our beds we tilled up the clay under them and added the gold on top and planted in that. the compost we got was dirt. no hay or anything showing but dirt. was a mountain of it and i mean mountain lol. we did get a good bit. at least 20 long bed pickup loads. well the owner of the ranch took our idea and spread it on top of his pastures so no more for us glad he waited until we were done lol.
now we have our own good compost started so we will be tilling that into the veggie garden soil to hopefully get the clay working for us. (not raised beds)

Oh Farm, you will have clay no more. We had a farm with horrible clay soil and layed in the compost and it was the best soil in all of the county when we were done.

that's what we are hoping for. we are a dying breed around here. more and more land is being divided up and sold to the herd and they are putting up large cement montrosities. all the produce is being shipped in from mexico. and who knows where else.
here i go again i will stop my ranting now before i get caught up in it again lol. i just hate seeing all this farm and cattle land disappearing to people that want to move out to the country and make it citified.

Amen, Farm! We have the same problem here in KY. We actually have in our deed that this farm must always remain a farm. It can never be sold to be broken up in parcels because they are dwindling away. I expect in TX it is even worse. Where is Hempstead? My daughter lives at Ft. Hood right now. :) Kathy

hempstead is about 70 miles north west of houston.

used to be the watermelon capital. now there are hardly any growers.
we are small time we have 13 acres. we only have about 1 acre planted so far in veggies. the rest we are trying to get good pasture for haying. can't buy good hay around here either. another part is chickens and another pasture is geese.

This message was edited May 10, 2004 8:26 AM

Farm and Misty,

.........I found some good info, that will really tweak your interest.
.... In France any and all farmland or acreage that goes up for sale has to go through the Farmer's Co-Op. They get first refusal on the sale.
.......Sure wish we could do sumpin like this. It breaks my heart to see all the surrounding farm families having to sell out.

WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT!!! Amazing. Thanks for sharing that Twin...

I bought composted manure that was supposed to be about 2 years old . I have two five gallon buckets that we fill about 1/3 compost and the rest water.
The compost steeps for about three days to a week. The secret is to keep the mixture mixed well, then learn to determine how strong to make the mixture. We will try to get a sample tested to find what all is in it. pr castle

Just stumbled across this thread Marc. You should ask Carolyn from the tomatoes forum this kinda question.

As for me, I find manure that is 2 years old (dead, whatever, yurcko) is better than just getting it fresh from a farm.

If you get it fresh off a farm you will have every single weed you can possibly imagine in your garden.

Been there, wore the t-shirt. :)

Thanks Karrie.....my veggies are VERY happy with the manure. I have never seen such big healthy veggies.
It's only the early to mid part of July and I aleady have the neighbors running when they see me coming
"NO MORE ZUCCHINI!!!!!"
Everything is growing wonderfully.....should be a truly bountiful harvest.