We farm, so we have an abundance of "fresh" fertilizer. The past 2 weeks, we have been collecting it and moving it to our raised garden beds. Many manures, such as horse and cow (among others), will kill a plant if applied directly to it while fresh. Each is different, but cow manure takes 30-45 days to age, so that it is safe for the plants. By adding them to my raised beds now, the heat will be gone by the time we start our planting in mid to late March.
If you know a farmer, most will be more than willing to let you go gather some from their pastures at no charge. It's free, organic, and better on the environment than using the ones with chemicals or found in plastic bags.
Source: I learned this the hard way, after applying it too close to the growing season years ago.
By mom-from-missouri from Plattsburg, MO
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This is a great tip! I just wanted to add - I like to use chicken manure. It has almost no weed seeds as are ground up in the chickens. So less weeding to do.
Remember chicken mature needs to age before using or it burn your tender plants.
I have been shoveling horse manure this week. The goal is about 10 yards. It doesn't have to be put on the garden spot immediately. I am piling it up for later, letting it 'cook'. Right now everything is too wet for me to get in there and unload it in the garden area.
I had an uncle who would make a slurry from pigeon manure (he raced pigeons) and after it had fermented a while he would use that on all his veges - I don't know though how long he would let it steep - but he used to grow beautiful vegetables on his allotment.
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