Compost is safe right next to plants, where manure can burn them up.

I use compost in my garden/flowerbeds. When I can get hold of manure, I put it in my compost pile.

Moni

Compost is the end result of the decomposition of any material that was once alive. It is the best natural fertilizer available and is the basic building-block of an organic soil-building program. The best compost is made up of a variety of organic material such as leaves, sawdust, hay, straw, grass, animal manure, bark, twigs, chipped or shredded wood like tree trimmings, vegetative food scraps, etc. Compost is high in nutrients, humus, humic acid and living microorganisms of many different kinds. The chemical analysis of compost will vary depending on what raw materials go into it and on what composting process is used, but in general its' N-P-K analysis is generally considered to be 1-1-1. One of the best things about compost is that it generally contains all the micro-nutrients (also known as trace elements) plants need and, if made of a variety of vegetative materials as described above, those micro-nutrients exist in compost in the proper ratio needed by plants for growth. These trace elements include zinc, copper, manganese, iron, boron, chloride, sulfur, sodium, magnesium, calcium, etc.

Cow manure is simply vegetative matter that has passed through a cow's digestive track. Because a cow's diet tends to be grass and/or grain type products, cow manure will be a little higher in nitrogen than compost, and it is generally believed that manure's N-P-K ratio is 2-1-1, although some commerical bagged manure list an N-P-K ratio of 0.5-1-1. I don't think cow manure has as many micronutrients or trace elements as compost because it comes from a more narrow spectrum of organic (once-living) material--grass and grains only, no wood products like leaves, twigs, sawdust, bark, etc.

Cow manure also contains some bacteria (like certain strains of E-coli, for example) in more concentrated levels than you would find in soil OR compost which is one of the reasons cow manure needs to be composted first before it is added to growing beds. Cow manure contains other pathogens and ingredients that also need to go through the decomposition process, including any chemicals used to treat the cows and growth hormones if used in the diet of the cows from whom the manure is obtained.

I would say that cow manure becomes compost, but compost is not cow manure. Nor it is really an attempt to recreate cow manure.

Composting is simply man's recycling of organic material (organic defined here as anything that was once alive) so it breaks down (decomposes) in the compost pile in the same way it breaks down on the forest floor. If I go into our wooded acreage and look down at my feet, do I see soil? No, I see layers of organic material. The top layer (beneath all the green plants that grow underneath the trees) will be the autumn leaves that are still largely intact and are pretty dry and crisp. There also will be other dead and dried vegetative matter like tree bark, twigs, dead and dried plant material from understory plants, etc. If I dig down beneath this top level, I will find partially broken down (partially composted) leaves, twigs, etc. If I dig a little further down, I'll see completely decomposed material that looks just like the rich, brownish-black compost I have at the bottom of my compost pile. And, if I dig down far enough, I will find our property's original yucky red clay soil. In our woods, the layer of vegetative material is about 8" deep before I finally reach red clay.

I use compost more than I use cow (or any other animal) manure. Compost is more natural because it comes directly from natural material that exists right here on our property. With cow manure, you have no idea what the cows were fed and, unless you get your manure from an organic cattle raiser, it is simply full of all kinds of chemicals. Some very serious organic gardeners won't use cow and other manures at all because of all the chemicals and hormones used in animal production.

I hope this info is helpful, and, as you can probably tell, I don't really agree with your neighbor's premise. When I am composting, I am not attempting to recreate cow manure. I AM attempting to recreate the forest floor that I described above

Dawn

Thanks Okiedawn. I never thought about E Coli and other bacteria being in manure. When we put manure on our garden we put several trailor loads on in the fall when hubby tilled. It set all winter so I suppose that was safe. That was some good information!! :-)

Please help explain the different kind in cow manure?
When I call to the seller, they mention something about Not hay but, sawdust?
Is it one is better then others?

Cow manure will vary depending on whether it is pure manure, scraped up from the barn floor or field, or if it is mixed with some sort of bedding, like hay or straw, sawdust, wood shavings, etc. If I am buying manure, I only purchase a brand that is 100% composted cow manure, like the Black Kow brand. Some bagged manures are mixed with sand, sawdust or other materials and are less than 10% manure. I avoid those because I don't want to waste my money on cheap filler materials.....I want high-quality manure.

Sawdust, especially pure sawdust, is difficult to use properly in the garden because it ties up nitrogen in the soil as it decomposes. For that reason, if you use cow manure mixed with sawdust, you really ought to compost it first. If I had a choice, I'd prefer manure mixed with hay or straw because it decomposes more quickly, at least here in my hot and humid climate.

Some people like to use sawdust as mulch on the surface of the soil. I don't use it at all, but that is just my personal preference. If it is properly composted in a well-balanced compost pile composed of a variety of materials, there's noting wrong with it.

The only problem with using hay or straw is that, if you are organic and wish to avoid chemicals, you may be introducing chemicals by bringing in hay or straw of unknown origin. A few years ago, there was a problem with some commercially-produced compost being sold that contained chemical residue from a broad-leaf herbicide that had not decomposed. Apparently that specific broad-leaf herbicide had not broken down during the composting process and enough residuce remained in the compost to kill the plants that people were trying to grow. This was a pretty big problem in the organic world for a couple of years until everyone learned to avoid hay/composted hay treated with that specific broad-leaf herbicide. To this day, I am careful to avoid hay or straw that's been treated with that brand of herbicide. It hasn't been an issue here in years, although people who are certified-organic growers do have to be very carefult about what they buy because they can lose their organic certification in the US if they inadvertently introduce a product onto their land that is not OMRI-approved or on the list of approved organic amendments/products.

If you are going to compost the cow manure first, I don't think it really matters if it is mixed with sawdust or hay or straw. If you are going to add the cow manure to your garden beds in the fall and let it sit and decompose in situ over the winter, it probably would be OK too. I wouldn't, however, add the manure/sawdust blend and then plant just a couple of weeks later.....I'd wait several months.

I've linked a webpage that describes how to use sawdust in the compost pile in the correct ratios.

Good luck.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Using Sawdust

As usual, Dawn has covered the subject so well that there is little to add. But I do want to adress the subject of weeds. A lot of manure is mixed with straw or hay that contains weed or grass seed. We once destroyed a new garden area by spreading horse manure/straw/hay bedding on it straight from a neighbor's barn. We got a complete cover of bermuda and johnson grass, the two worst grasses from a gardening standpoint. For this reason, manure should be thoroughly composted with temps that reach 140-160 degrees. If you are buying cow manure compost that is being advertised as made with sawdust, the seller is trying to allay your fears of getting seeds.

And about sawdust. We have used at least 100 pickup loads of sawdust over the last 30 years. There used to be a sawmill close to us that had a mountain of well-rotted sawdust that we could buy for $5.00 a pickup load, shoveling it ourself. Then the owner sold the property, and the new owner tried to burn the pile of sawdust along with the large pile of rotting slabs. We were heartbroken. That stuff was ready to till into the soil or mulch the garden with just as we got it; it had laid out there for 20 years and was really very well composted. All the local gardeners who had been mining that "black gold" cried when it was bulldozed up--because of course it wouldn't burn except a little on top.

And as Moni said, fresh manure will burn your plants. I lost a whole row of half grown green beans learning that lesson. They turned brown and crispy and croaked overnight after we spread what we thought was aged chicken manure, that we got from a commercial house. We now use chicken manure out of our own shed, which is mixed with pine shavings that we buy from the feed store. We either compost it or spread it over the garden in late fall and till it in to cool off and decompose by spring. We plant corn which is a heavy feeder in that area. Happy Gardening and composting. Dorothy