Help Your Spring Vegetable Garden Grow with Horse Manure

With spring knocking on the door, getting your vegetable seedlings up out of the soil is a job that needs to be taken care of right away.

There are many ways of raising your seeds, but the best method I have used is plain old raw manure. You will need to visit a local cattle or horse farm for this project, and getting a little dirty is very possible, but the results produced are top quality.

Sowing Into Horse Manure:

The process of using horse manure is very easy. Take a large sheet of plastic, or recycle some plastic shopping bags for this task; lay them over an area of ground to keep weeds at bay. Wearing gloves, take the balls of horse 'poo' and lay them out in rows the length and breadth of the plastic. When you picked up your bag of horse manure it will have been somewhat dry, which is recommended for transportation. Spray these balls with water until very wet, and leave for one hour. Return with your seeds, let's assume butternut squash for this purpose, and gently press one seed into each manure ball.

A few days later you will be delighted to see your squash leaping out of the manure into strong healthy plants. At the 6 leaf stage, transplant into the ground, still in the manure - water.

This process is highly effective due to the fact that your plant is born into a ready supply of nutritious fertilizer. Also, direct planting and not having to disturb the root system means there will not be transplant shock. All of your plants will flourish and you will soon see flowers and produce appear.

Sowing Into Cow Manure:

When using cow dung, the method is similar but since cow dung/pads/chips/poo is a flat formation rather than in ball form, each dung pile can have 3 seeds per heap. Be sure to also set these onto plastic to inhibit root growth into the earth below. One word of warning though, do not water the cow dung as much as the horse manure before inserting the seeds, it will become too soft and will lose form resulting in a very nasty mess.

Any remaining dung can be placed into a burlap sack and submerged into a drum of water. Keep the water topped up and scoop out with a small bucket for watering. This keeps seeds from weed stock to a minimum, and not much weeding will be necessary from this point on.

* For safety, always keep a secure lid on top of the drum of water.

If the thought of handling manure turns you off , but you have sons.....

Kids love dirty stuff and they will find it more humorous than you probably will.

*Caution: Gloves will protect you, but be sure to thoroughly wash hands and clean nails after handling manure. E coli can be found in cattle manure and a disinfectant is recommended when washing. Also add a dash to your laundry water when washing your gardening apparel.