and also, 101 uses for cow manure...

[burek]

it's 30p a wheelbarrow-load here - bargain!
Can I put some on my new compost heap?

[the.fee.fairy]

yep!

And, dig in some into the garden/veg patch/allotment.

[Annpan]

Shouldn't you let it rot down for a year before digging it in??

Can you burn cow dung?

[the.fee.fairy]

I dug rotted manure in in the winter, and i'm planting now.

As i understand it, if you plant carrots in after manuring, then they'll get fanged.

[pskipper]

As i understand it, if you plant carrots in after manuring, then they'll get fanged.

Vampire Carrots!!!

[Cornelian]

yes, you can burn dried cow dung - many cultures use it almost exclusively for fuel, and I have used it for camp fires myself. It is also very very good when making mud bricks for housing.

[Jack]

Gidday

What a bloody waste too. Burning that good organic matter.
You can just bung it straight onto your garden as long as you cover it with enough mulch to stop it splashing onto your lettuce. Why did it in, surely the natural way is droopped straight onto the surface and who can really do better than nature?

[Millymollymandy]

I'm sure I've heard of cowpat flinging competitions.

[Wombat]

Hit 'em with a lawn mower and use the resulting fluffy stuff to replace peat in seed raising mixtures etc.

Nev

[the.fee.fairy]

I nwas talking to a friend who's got stables the other day - and she was told that burnt manure ash had more nutrients in it that non-burnt manure. So...that burning idea might not be quite so off after all.

[Jack]

Gidday

Sorry Fairy but where would they come from? O course it is impossible to have more in after burning. What it would mean is that it is more concentrated but a lot of goodies would go up in the smoke.

Way back when this country was only just being broken out of bush, fresh cow manure was sometimes used as a poultice if nothing else was available. But I probably wouldn't recommend that noow.

[Wombat]

I would tend to agree with Jack, unless he meant that the burning concentrated the minerals, which it would but you would lose nitrogen and organic matter.

Nev

[the.fee.fairy]

Fair enough, it was something i was told, so it doesn't necessarily mean its true!

personally, i actually enjoy diggin in the rotted stuff rather than the burnt stuff.

[red]

perhaps it was weight for weight? and once you burnt the manure you would get rid of unrotted straw and moisture, then maybe 1 kg of ash would have more goodies than 1 kg of manure?
root veg is sposed to like unmanured ground, so should be last in your crop rotation, but spuds like it - we nestled ours on a bed of old horse poo when we planted them

another use (no idea what number we up to)
make a hot bed with it.

[burek]

thanks for replies

I've dug loads in to the garden already. If I remember correctly, strawberries and roses love the stuff too, don't they? Can I just pop it down on the ground around them?