Chicken waste for compost question

[Shadrach]

If you were trying to grow some endangered crop, or particular sensitive plants I think it might be worth worrying about.
Just about everything that is biodegradable goes in the compost here. What the chickens don't turn over gets done manually.
The answer here for most edible crops is not to plant them in neat compost. Mix the compost into the natural soil. I do about 1 compost :10 soil and stuff grows.
Pick the crops that grow easily without too much messing about with the soil composition.

 

[NHMountainMan]

And even with the tilling, more farmers are going to the “no till” method that cuts back on weeds. Check out Cornell University’s website for gardening/farming questions.

I have read a bit about not tilling, but I think in raised beds, where nutrients can be depleted, tilling supplements the missing nutrients. Really appreciate the advice! thank you.

 

[NHMountainMan]

Yes you can or just leave it and let it decompose. Eventually it's a good idea to turn it in. We have piles. We put leaves, poop, shavings from cleaning the coops, kitchen vegie scraps, hay and grass clippings in the summer when we mow, all go into the piles. The piles get turned once in awhile. We use the tractor with the bucket to turn the piles. We also have a chipper shredder we have used in the past to chip branches in and that also went into the compost. We haven't used it for quite awhile and are going to sell it. It goes on the back of one of our tractors 3-point hitches and runs off of the PTO. The pile on the left is our new pile we recently started. The pile on the right is the one we are using.
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Wow - those are some impressive compost piles.!

 

[cmom]

We have a lot of gardens.

 

[NatJ]

You also cannot compare growing conditions in Alaska to New England. Apparently the daylight cycles/midnight sun does something to accelerate the growth cycle of crops resulting in huge vegetables.

Long days certainly have their uses
I don't think it's accelerating the growth, though. It's more a matter of "cool weather" crops having a long season to grow, because there is no hot weather to stress them or kill them.

But I think how fast the manure breaks down in the soil would be affected more by soil temperature than by day length-- so one cold place could have useful information for another cold place.

 

[Sequel]

The one thing I would add is to make sure any fresh manure has not been added too close to planting for things that you eat raw such as salad greens. They do love nitrogen though but I’ve heard to leave a good 60 days before planting, for food borne illness prevention.
Root crops such as carrots and beets don’t want too much nitrogen either, carrots tend to get forked and hairy with roots. And if you eat them raw you wouldn’t want them in poopy dirt anyhow.
As you rotate your crops you can plant heavy feeders like corn and squash on the most poopy ground and work down to cabbage, greens and then peppers and tomatoes and finally carrots and beets. It’s more or less what I try to follow. Every garden is different and mine is fairly sandy especially at one end so I use a lot of leaves.
Like you I got chickens to help with my garden and I’m still on the learning curve!

 

[FortCluck]

The one thing I would add is to make sure any fresh manure has not been added too close to planting for things that you eat raw such as salad greens. They do love nitrogen though but I’ve heard to leave a good 60 days before planting, for food borne illness prevention.
Root crops such as carrots and beets don’t want too much nitrogen either, carrots tend to get forked and hairy with roots. And if you eat them raw you wouldn’t want them in poopy dirt anyhow.
As you rotate your crops you can plant heavy feeders like corn and squash on the most poopy ground and work down to cabbage, greens and then peppers and tomatoes and finally carrots and beets. It’s more or less what I try to follow. Every garden is different and mine is fairly sandy especially at one end so I use a lot of leaves.
Like you I got chickens to help with my garden and I’m still on the learning curve!

So I'm good then. I won't be planting until late March or early April

 

[NHMountainMan]

So I'm good then. I won't be planting until late March or early April

With raised beds, my garden tends to thaw pretty quickly, so hopefully I be able to till everything under in mid-late April. Most of my plants don't go in the ground until Memorial day, as we still get occasional freezes. So - hopefully the 6 weeks or so will break it down.

 

[FortCluck]

With raised beds, my garden tends to thaw pretty quickly, so hopefully I be able to till everything under in mid-late April. Most of my plants don't go in the ground until Memorial day, as we still get occasional freezes. So - hopefully the 6 weeks or so will break it down.

This is our weather. I think it'll be broken down here.

 

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

With raised beds, my garden tends to thaw pretty quickly, so hopefully I be able to till everything under in mid-late April. Most of my plants don't go in the ground until Memorial day, as we still get occasional freezes. So - hopefully the 6 weeks or so will break it down.

You can cover those beds with clear plastic to warm the soil up. Check out planting under plastic tunnels.