Root vegetables, like carrots, onions, and potatos, are not generally grown in soil that has recently been amended with fresh manure. But, you can still grow broccoli, tomatos, green beans, and swiss chard. I like to use shredded leaves for making compost over the winter, and apply the finished compost to the garden in the spring. But there are many others who put shredded leaves directly onto their garden plot.

Thanks for the reply.
I just read some manure guidelines online. Fall is apparently a good time to apply and I'm going to add composted manure so harmfull bacteris should be dead. I'm sure the Lowes mix was composted and not raw although it stunk. A guy around here makes sheeps milk cheese and sells composted sheep manure he calls Ewe Poo. I think I'll try that next.
Reading about e coli does make me realize you have to be carefull with what's in the soil. I guess that should be obvious.

You can hot compost it before adding as well. In the future- skip the peat- use shredded leaves. They're better in every way, and free.

If the manure was purchased bagged, it is unlikely to be very fresh. Also, applying manure now as a soil amendment and allowing to "mature" over winter will in all likelihood dissipate any manure-like aroma. Some, like even well-composted poultry manure, will retain a manure aroma indefinitely, unless incorporated into the soil. And no, it won't be wasted if applied now. Any sort of organic matter applied to the soil is of benefit, in improving soil structure and drainage and encouraging larger populations of beneficial organisms. When you get ready to plant in spring, you should find your soil nicely loose, a rich, dark color and teeming with worms and other helpful critters.

How fast OM (like the leaves) breaks down over winter has much to do with your temperatures and their size. Colder temperatures will slow decomposition, as will larger size. You can chop up or shred the leaves and incorporate them in the soil now or leave as a mulch and work them in when you plant.

Harvestable crops like veggies often require more nutrients than are readily available in the soil, especially with a newly prepared bed. But MiacleGro is not your only alternative - there are many organic fertilizers you can use to supplement your soil nutrients and still keep the chemicals (like MG) out of the garden.

And I wouldn't waste my time and money adding peat to garden soils. First, it's an acidifier and unless you are growing acid-loving crops (most veggies are not) there is little need. And if your soil is highly alkaline, there are better and cheaper methods of adjusting pH. And it has virtually no nutrient content. And since it is nearly completely decomposed, it offers little appeal to soil organisms. While it can increase moisture retention, nearly any other OM will do the same, especially compost, which is waaay cheaper and offers many other fine attributes as well.

Here is a link that might be useful: types of organic fertilizers

The worst thing about peat is that it contributes to the destruction of peat bogs which is unsustainable

HFO, sorry but that is not an entirely accurate statement. North American peat bogs - mostly Canadian, as they have by far the largest supply in world - tend to be very sustainable, in fact they actively farm them by seeding them with sphagnum moss and using amendments and fertilizers to speed up the harvest. They are also highly regulated by the Canadian government. This is a bit of myth that keeps getting tossed around and while it does apply to certain regions (mostly European peat bogs that have been harvested for centuries and do not have the vastness of real estate that NA bogs do) it is not valid as it applies to the Canadian peat industry. Feel free to do your own research to confirm, but I've supplied one source to start with.

Here is a link that might be useful: Canadian peat industry

Oh good, I've worried about that also... but I thought if my potting soil was coming from the UK, it'd be a whole lot more expensive than it is, so I figured it must not be peat from the UK.

I've done the research too and I agree with gardengal; however, the Canadian peat industry link is completely self-serving so if you are looking for a critical review, you have to look much farther. What I decided was that, although it takes 1,000 years to make a little peat, the vastness of supply and demand for peat is such that it is basically limitless - sort of like taking all the salt out of the ocean (not quite, but that's the idea).

If you think using manure is an organic practice, you need to do a lot more reading. Manure has ONE place in the garden, and that is as an ingredient in the compost pile. Anything that smells like manure is not ready to go into the garden. Compost is the end product of letting bacteria, fungi, microarthropods, and protozoa actively digest the raw materials. Animal dung should probably be one of the raw components, but it doesn't have to be. But animal dung SHOULD be completely composted before use in the garden. What is completely composted mean? It means the finished product smells great (!), like a forest floor after a rainstorm.

Poultry manure might smell bad indefinitely if it has not been digested by the right critters. Even cattle dung will persist indefinitely if it doesn't have the proper species of dung beetle to process it.

Just to touch on organic gardening in general, compost (and especially animal dung) is not the key to organic gardening. Fertilizer is. I find the ground grains like corn meal work best for me.

Most manures sold today are wet, composted, manures packed into tightly sealed bags and when any manure is wet and in an airless environment anaerobic digestion starts and the stuff smells pretty bad. Once in your soil, and now exposed to air, aerobic digestion will commence and the odor will change and not be offensive, although I did find an old time gardener that found the smell of good, rich earth offensive and prefered the smell of a dead but well chemicalized soil. I'm not sure if his olfactory nerves were messed up or if that was just what he was taught.
Your carrots should not smell of manure when harvested.

I put in 3 40lb bags of Ewe Poo this weekend and I think I'm done with the manure now. The ewe poo is packed in mesh type bags and is dry, and kimmsr is correct that it doesn't smell a bit. It seems like good stuff. Really fluffed up my soil a lot. I think I'll cover the soil with some shredded leaves and be done until spring.

Thanks for all the replies. The Colorado State web site has plenty of natural fertilizer information. I bookmarked it.

Has anybody posted to this post since 2006. Does anybody out there use animal manures in there garden. I apply horse manure in the fall and spring. If I have not tilled it in, it has aged for at least four month. If it has been tilled it has disappeared into the soil. I have people concerned about pathogens. In my 55 years of gardening and using manures, I have never had the media driven fears that they are putting into people. Where do people think there food is grown. In fields spread with manures. I know of hydroponics which is expensive.

Len

why do you talk about peat bogs as being unsustanible. What should you do with those bogs. Watch them! The human condition inevidently will always exhaust resources. What about oil, coal, natural gas and the like. If there is money to be made some big corporation will exploit it

Has anybody posted to this post since 2006

Just you.

you need to use chicken poop

i really don't know a lot, but it worked on my garden

Mark my words! Those who continue to sanitize there life to the fears of pathogens in manures and most likely the bodies immune systems will become so deficient and will required nothing but antibotics to fight common bacteria. LYSOL AND CLOROX HAVE CONDITION THOSE INDIVIDUAL TO IGNORE TO THE DETRIMENT OF LIFE THERE GOD GIVEN IMMUNE SYSTEM.

don't put those on plants

Enjoyed this thread.