Feeding your garden

[Grammypammy]

So what do all you people who are trying to live more natrually feed your garden?
If you are using chicken manure/ bedding, how long do you let it age before you use it?

 

[Fluffnpuff]

I use a combination of legume cover crops, chicken manure, and companion planting. At the end of August after everything edible is harvested, i plant rows of hairy vetch with a few feet between rows. I put fresh chicken poop mixed with straw or hay in between the rows from September until the 1st week of Feb. I leave it exposed to the elements to decompose. At the end of April i plow it into the ground and then start planting the 1st or 2nd week of May. The earliest thing i harvest is in mid July so there has been has been 5+ months between the last application of manure, and actually eating something from the garden.

 

[Ridgerunner]

it's pretty traditional to empty your coop out onto your garden after the harvest and let it decompose over winter. Exactly when you do that will depend on your climate.

I have a droppings board and use the pure manure in my compost, along with the debris from the garden and grass trimmings. I may get two batches of compost a year, but I don't work it that hard. I'll probably only turn it once.

I mulch a lot of things, usually spreading a layer of newspaper and covering that with straw, dried grass trimmings, or year old wood chips and turn all that under when it's finished. That stuff decomposes and really adds tilth to the garden, plus keeps weeds down. It's a whole lot easier to get the garden ready for the next year where it has been mulched because the weeds and especially grass has not taken hold. I don't plow mine under but turn it with a spade or by using a mattock to mix it up. The wood chips need to be a year old or they won't decompose enough to just turn under. I age mine in landscaping beds.

If you have cows or horses, you can spread manure in the fall, just like cleaning out your chicken coop, but that tends to spread a lot of weed and grass seeds. If you can compost that stuff and get it to heat up you can kill a lot of weed seeds, but animal manure is a great fertilizer. Except for rabbit manure, it is all too hot to put directly on growing plants so it needs to break down first.

 

[gjensen]

You will loose a lot to evaporation. You will not loose it all, and it will still help, but you will not get the most of it.

 

[Czech's_chicks]

Rabbit and alpaca poop can go directly on/in the soil without any burning. It also helps retain moisture, This is what I use. I would never put chicken directly on because it will burn, that goes in the compost.