Manure and soil

[Thomas]

I have a large amount of manure mixed with hay that they pulled outside the ring and wasted. Was planning to put it in an area where we were planning to plant a garden and plow it under to enrich the soil. Now I am hearing that the spinach problem may be traced to groundwater used to irrigate contaminated with bacteria from livestock manure. So do I have a problem in doing this? Should I wait a period of time for it to break down in the soil?

[hillbilly_mom]

Was the manure from your animals or from another place? You know what your animals eat and how healthy they are.

[kawalekm]

To kill the E. coli that might be present, pile the straw into a big heap, somewhat moist and very aerated. Let the composite get hot, and that will kill the E.coli present. Don't use the RAW, untreated waste in your garden. It will be especially safe if you treat it first and then plow it in this fall and let it decompose slowly over the winter.

We are not concerned at all about the spinach outbreak, because we use all our fresh spinach in stir-fry. Heating spinach enough to watersoak it is hot enough to kill E. coli.

[Smoky]

E-coli would be just one of many bacteria and fungi found in fresh manure. Composting to a good high temp will kill most of the bad guys, then tilling it all under to rest over the winter will make it much safer for you.
Root vegetables that will be eaten raw should still be scrubbed pretty good or scraped or peeled, whichever applies to that crop. Cooking will of course destroy all e-coli and other harmful bacteria/fungi.

[Thomas]

Yes, its all from our cattle, feed sweetfeed, range cubes, grazing, and hay. I just got to thinking, if I plowed this in and we tried to put in a winter garden or something, our plants would be in relatively fresh manure, and would get it on them during the harvesting.

[DM]

The part you left out is, the manure was put directly on the spinach!!! NOT on the ground and not worked into the soil!!! That spinach had raw sewage on it!!!

I'd take all the fresh manure i could get, old new or otherwise, and get it on my garden spot ASAP...

DM

[hillbillyman]

Folks in these parts have been putting fresh manure on gardens and tilling it under for years. In fact, im going to be added some to my garden in the next couple of days.

[hillbilly_mom]

My two cows are out eating up the left overs from our garden spot now. We will put one round bale of hay in the middle of the garden spot, and when that is done we will gate them out of the garden and till it in. By Spring the manure is fine for our garden.

[Thomas]

hillbilly mom, thats an excelent worksaver idea! Our garden spot is across the road out of the pasture area so cant do it. This is going to be our first real stab at a garden, we grew watermellons there one year though. I'm not a gardner by any stretch, and really not big on eating vegetables, but we are going to give it a try.

[Doglover]

http://weblife.org/humanure/default.html

This is an excellent E-book on composting with manure, it focuses on human poop but the basics are the same.

[bookwormom]

it is always a good idea to pile things up and let it decompose for a while, it makes the nutrients more available to the plants, raw manure is not so good.

[GrannySueD_in_IL]

Now I am hearing that the spinach problem may be traced to groundwater used to irrigate contaminated with bacteria from livestock manure. So do I have a problem in doing this? Should I wait a period of time for it to break down in the soil?

Yes, it was traced to run-off/irrigation problems and animal manure... NO it was not groundwater...

From a factory farm (not a CAFO, but just as bad) - cattle - with unhealthy animals - and faulty irrigation equipment.

Though apparently this particular bacteria has mutated to be capable of being taken up through a plant's roots, that part of the story is still largely unsubstantiated. They have also found in onions between the layers, and some other plants. VERY RARE. Most cannot be.

If there are no diseases running rampant on the farm, don't worry about that part of it.

Most manures from larger animals (just about everything but rabbits - maybe chickens, depending) should be composted for about a year before planting over it because of nitrogen burn. Composting will also kill most bacteria/bugs/other pathogens, in the remote chance that something which can be taken up is in there. However, like I said - most can't survive inside of a plant.

If this were October, I'd say don't worry, but I would not plant directly over fresh or semi-fresh manure. Give it time to compost a little in the ground or on a compost pile first.

Half the mainstream media news is lies, and the other half never gets told. If you want to know the real stories - keep an eye on the money trail... it's tough to find honest sources of information... Tv, radio and newspapers aren't worth the effort.