IMO "how much" all depends on "how old" it is. That is the crucial point.

2 year old manure is well composted and relatively low- nutrient, especially in N as most of it will have evaporated. So it is primarily a soil amendment, not a "fertilizer", and several inches can safely be added. Shoot, you could probably add a foot of it if you wanted and I have when building new beds.

Fresh manure - never recommended for use in the home garden anyway - is the other extreme and if used, should be used very sparingly and not around root crops or low growing ground-contact crops.

The ideal composted manure (120-160 days old) can be added in 2-4" layers and tilled in without any real problems. While it is true that it can still have sufficient N to pose a possible problem for root crops and legumes, IF it is applied and tilled 3-4 weeks before planting the effect IME is minimal.

Keeping in mind that this topic has associated controversy, this is JMO.

Dave

Hi Lynn, I will speak from my experience and what I've been told.
Yes, inches thick is great, and two year old manure sounds excellent.
I lay it down and don't till it in, because I don't till. I generally lay it on top in fall or winter, and then just plant in spring. YOu could lay it now. I'm sure tilling would work great, too.

I have heard that onions will get "hot" if you manure their bed, so I use only compost in my onion bed each year. (I prefer mild onions)

I've had potatoes grow in manure only, and I've put lots of manure on my carrots, all with good results, so I didn't think there was any reason to avoid the manure for root crops in general. I've never worried about ecoli, if that's why you thought it needed to be avoided. Maybe someone has info on that for veggies eaten raw, but cooking kills the bacteria rather quickly.

Truckloads of composted cow manure -- you're rich!

I started my raised beds 2 yrs ago. This will be my 3rd season. My backyard had been dozed, and where I was placing the bed wasnt very good soil, as there was hardly any topsoil. grass struggles here. My neighbor has a horse stable, and offered to give me all the aged manure I wanted from where they clean out the stable and shove it into a pile. My first season, I tilled the soil (open bottoms) in the raised beds about 6" down to loosen some, then added in about 6-8" of aged manure. Things did very well. lasy yr not so well, but we had a drought, and I wasnt home much. But i did have my soil tested last Fall, and the soil in the beds was almost perfect. The test showed that it didnt really need any amendments. I hadnt added any manure last yr, except in each bed I added a bag of miracle grow garden soil, and some peat moss. my orginal soil is mostly hard clay. I have already hauled in one truckload of manure and will get more to add into the original beds and to start soem more.I agree tho about not using fresh manure especially for root crops or anything growing close to the soil such as strawberries. Mine was aged enough, that it was crumbly and not much odor.
Tammy

Here is a link that might be useful: my garden

If you can get more, get more and till it all in. Perhaps the carrots will be hairy this year, and the beans unproductive, due to the extra N, but in future years all you will have to do to take care of the soil is 1) add some N fertilizer and 2) add some light mulch such as grass clippings, sawdust, straw or leaves to keep the numerous earthworms fed. All the other macronutrients, the micronutrients, the pH balancing if needed, the micro-flora and fauna, will all be there. The plants will be strong and disease-resistant.

Wow, thanks all for the wonderful responses. My Dad and two sons helped me get two more pickup loads today. I will spend the evenings this week spreading and tilling, then see if I need more.

Lynn

I have access to all the manure I want. There is an auction barn less than 5 miles down the road from my place. I will take a tractor down there later and load up a couple 16' trailer loads for my garden. They have it piled up in large piles and you can get as much as you want free. All I will do is get it from the oldest piles which are well composted. It makes great free fertilizer and helps build up your soil.

In auction barns you are at risk for Clopyralid contamination.

Manure contains a lot of salt from the urine and can build up in your soil to damage your garden. How much you can apply depends on your climate and how much moisture the manure was exposed to while it aged. Primarily, the salts will wash out with sufficient water. I would guess that you are in a more limited rainfall area and probably apply some supplemental irrigation to the garden. If you apply too much manure, it could salt the ground out. Beans are pretty sensitive to salt and will be some of the first plants to fail to perform or even die if salt levels are too high.

I used to add 2 to 4 inches of manure a year to the garden, then we went through several years of drought and started irrigating with a sprinkler instead of flood irrigation--i.e. I stopped washing the salts out of the soil by limiting water application. It didn't take too long to figure out that the salts were building up to the point that I was getting a lot of problems with everything that was salt sensitive. In addition, I started getting some mineral deficiencies.

After a soil test from Ward Labs (located in Kansas), I found that the micro nutrients were way high, and the overload of some micronutrients was causing problems for the plants to take up other micro nutrients, even though those were also in excess supply. They even wrote on the soil test results to stop applying so much manure, even though I hadn't told them that I did apply manure. Fortunately, the drought lifted for a while and I was able to flood irrigate again to move the excess salts out of the upper soil profile. I also stopped applying manure for a couple years to let the nutrient levels fall.

Since then, I add less manure and instead add organic matter during the summer (residue composed mostly of alfalfa leaves) which can then decompose in the soil for the next year. My salt and micro nutrient issues have disappeared, I'm still maintaining organic matter content in the soil of 2-4% (natural levels here are Adding nitrogen is still needed to give the plants a boost. I also noticed that when I reduced the manure, my disease issues with the potatoes, tomatoes, and peppers declined. I think the manure was providing a host for soil born diseases. It was just a case of "if a little is good, more isn't better".

LynnMarie, I think it is prudent to first consider the type of soil that you have in SW Kansas. In the Garden City area the soil is known as semi arid and very well drained, meaning it is sandy to rocky for the most part and extremely dry . Is this correct for your area? This type of soil known as 'Eva Course Loam' can vary in color from brown to light brown to yellow. Some irrigation farming is done on some of this land but it is mostly range land used for cattle. Because of the soil type and the low fertility of the soil in your area and it's excessive drainage, I don't think you can put on too much manure as long as it is aged for 1-2 full years. It will dissipate quickly in your soil type because of the severe drainage of the soil. It would be even better if you could add a lot of organic compost as well. Adding compost will give the soil a lot more water retention which you will need to get your plants through a long hot summer and even more so if this drought continues. Plan on using a ton of water to keep everything well irrigated. I'm in NC Nebraska and the drought is severe up here, so I know it must be two fold at least in your area. Last year I started a new veggie garden at a new home. Our garden is about 30'x 60'. We added an entire dump truck load of manure (about 12-14" deep) and tilled it in. We top dressed with grass clippings from the local yard mowing company, putting it down while it was green and working it in to the soil as it dried out. We watered for three hours each morning and each evening at sunset. Hands down we had the best looking garden in town! My beans produced plenty but the plants looked scraggly and I still have a half a kitchen freezer full. And yes my carrots were hairy but huge. Some as much as three inches thick. I left them in ground all summer to mid fall, they were also about 10" long. I scraped them, sliced them, blanched them and put them in freezer bags for the freezer. They make fantastic soup. Onions were great and started from onion starts. We planted both white and red sweet onions. The red were the strongest in flavor but the white are very mild. Still eating them from last summers crop which is stored in the underground root cellar. I hope this helps some. Good Luck!

Dave/digdirt: Thanks for the 120-160 day info! I have been confused by "well aged"

I have a standing supply of horse manure, which I layer into the compost pile with general garden waste. Is 120-160 days still a good guideline? I started a leaf pile layered with same horse manure to sit over winter, and at least half the summer for fall beds. Would I start counting days in spring?

Thanks!
Kate

There is a lot of farm ground in my area. A large portion of it is irrigated, but there is some dryland corn ( not very successful lately) . The soil out here is pretty well drained and we are VERY dry nowadays. I will have to water a lot. As jrslick said somewhere- we are a good 15 inches below average on rainfall. I am planning a large garden this year and it is going to be a challenge. I cant afford drip tape or soaker hoses, so my sprinklers will be busy day in and day out. Hopefully the manure will help with water retention. I got 4 pickup loads of it and have been spreading it out and will till it in asap.