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Post by marjeta on Jun 3, 2010 8:06:38 GMT -5
It's been a few years now since I'm growing squash this way. Some of you may know that I keep horses too. I have 9 thoroughbreds that live in open stalls (they can choose whether to stay out or go inside), are barefoot and live as naturally as I can offer them. They are my manure producers. I don't get as much as I would if they would live in confinement (in boxes), but it's still enough for my other hobby, plus my horses are happier, healthier and I have less work. I have a big pasture so I can borrow some space for the gardening. We daily clean the stalls and take the manure not far (with barrows) on piles. This year I fenced the place (electric wire), because I'm not growing only squash, but also cucumbers, melons and watermelons. Although the manure is not cured (it's from this winter), the cucurbitaceae seem not to care. They grow really well, even better then in my garden (in the soil). I water them occasionally when it's dry. This year I was a little late with sowing, but not too late. I'll post pictures as the plants grow bigger.
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Post by galina on Jun 6, 2010 10:53:59 GMT -5
I have heard that other people also grow squash in fresh horse manure with great success, but not that seeds germinate in the stuff. Sounds a great way of doing squashes and I envy you all that lovely manure.
We used to have a farmer at the top of the garden who let us use from their manure heap what we wanted and I gave them the odd basket of produce. The people who live there now dowsed the huge mature manure heap in petrol and burnt it all! We now have to buy horse manure by the sack and I am using pelleted organic chicken manure as the main source of fertility together with liquid comfrey tea.
I am looking forward to your pictures later on. Your property and the free running horses sound very nice.
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Post by flowerpower on Jun 7, 2010 6:11:41 GMT -5
You cannot use fresh horse manure. It should sit for at least a yr. Same for chicken or cow. You can use goat, sheep, or rabbit droppings fresh. I am not sure about llama or alpaca. I like to make a nice manure tea from the goat poop. I do take all the spoiled hay and use it to grow squash. In fact, I am putting some plants in there today. Corn too. Marjeta, you didn't post pics of the horses. You have 9? I am soo jealous.
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Post by kathm on Jun 7, 2010 10:29:46 GMT -5
Growing mine on last year's chicken-poo!
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Post by toad on Jun 11, 2010 14:46:41 GMT -5
I'm growing melons and squash on fresh horse manure in a trench, and covered with the soil from the trench. Works fine, and been done for generations in Europe. Horse manure isn't any stronger than lawn cuttings, but as the cut fresh grass gets mouldy, horse manure is better for the plants. But opinions seems to divide somewhere in the Atlantic on this subject :-)
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Post by raymondo on Jun 16, 2010 16:59:43 GMT -5
I've grown melons and squash on piles of fresh mown grass, left to settle for a two weeks or so. I made pockets and filled them with soil or potting mix and planted into that. The plants seemed to love the bottom heat created.
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Post by marjeta on Jun 19, 2010 10:28:57 GMT -5
You cannot use fresh horse manure. It should sit for at least a yr. Mine hasn't and it works pretty fine. It's from november to april. Of course the one from march/april is very fresh and it's actually dung (poop) and hay/straw - not much decomposed. In fact, horse manure is not very strong. Horses eat grass/hay and aren't ruminants as cattle or sheep, so their dung it very hay-like and not very smelly (it looses the smell very fast).
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Post by stratcat on Jun 19, 2010 22:54:13 GMT -5
Love your pictures of the horses with mountains in the background. Striking! My neighbors in town have three rabbits this year and I hope to get some poop for my tomatoes and peppers.
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Post by extremegardener on Jun 20, 2010 9:04:03 GMT -5
I've grown melons and squash on piles of fresh mown grass, left to settle for a two weeks or so. I made pockets and filled them with soil or potting mix and planted into that. The plants seemed to love the bottom heat created. Yup - I do this as well for cucurbits, also tomatoes. As long as they get planted into something (I make a pocket of compost) that protects them from immediate contact with the hot grass it works well, and here the added heat is a huge benefit. I do work the hot chopped grass into the soil in the beds with a digging fork and let it sit a couple of days before making the compost pockets and planting. Love the horse pix - we don't have access to any animal manure, so I rely on grass.
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Post by cornishwoman on Jun 27, 2010 13:14:14 GMT -5
I use my horse manure in 2 different ways.I dig last years poo pile into bed in the spring,unfortunately theres always quite a bit of shavings mixed in that, plus undigested oats and corn that seems to pass right through some of my older horses guts,I say unfortunately as I do some times get sprout age from the corn and oats. Then I have 2 large barrel's that I catch rain water in,{that hasn't been a problem this year} I add around 2 buckets of fresh horse manure to that then some comfy leaves shredded up and let it sit and brew,this I use as a concentrate,4 cup fulls in a watering can then top it up with rain water which I have caught in another container,that's all I ever use as a fertilizer in the flower beds and the veg patch.I have never used hot manure on a bed but I have side dressed with it.Talking of manure ,ant the flies bad this year or is it just my area. I found some fly paper strips at my local feed store,little thing looks like a shot cartridge for a shot gun,then you pull a little tab and it concertina's out,even had a thumb tack so you can fix it in place,within hours the entire strip was buzzing with flies and the sound of their death drones.
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Post by marjeta on Jul 24, 2010 5:27:27 GMT -5
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Post by cornishwoman on Jul 24, 2010 11:01:37 GMT -5
Teeth are fine,I have a performance float done on my riding horses teeth which is darn expensive.Can you get black oats where you are,that's the type of oats I fed while in england and my horses did so good on it,that's pretty much all I fed other than forage and hay,never seen it here but then again I have never asked.I just keep a sack of sweet beet feed as a treat,they usually come up to a whistle but just one or 2 of them take their sweet time,so if I need them in pronto a coffee can with a few grains of sweet feed rattling around brings them up to the barn with lighting speed.My squash was lousy this year,I swear it died 3 times and came back 3 times,it was an effort for the plants to produce the minuscule amount they did,zucchini was the same way ,really disappointing as I'm usually overrun with both but then again all that water at the start of the season , now all this heat.
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