How to Add Chicken Manure to Your Veggie Garden
When establishing and maintaining a home vegetable garden, chicken manure is one of the best soil amendments, fertilizers and composts around. For one thing, it is organic and can be used in place of a chemical fertilizer. For another, chicken manure has the highest quantities of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium of any livestock manure. These nutrients are essential to vegetable health and will help ensure a large produce yield. Does this Spark an idea?
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Instructions
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Be sure that chicken manure has been well-composted before adding it to your vegetable garden. If you are purchasing manure from a nursery it will almost certainly be composted. However, if you are using manure from your own flock or from a farm, compost it for about six months before adding it to your garden. Place the manure in a compost bin and turn every few weeks to aerate. This ensures that the raw manure does not burn the roots of sensitive young plants in your vegetable bed. It should also kill off any disease organisms that may be present in the manure.
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Apply chicken manure to your vegetable bed as a soil amendment. In the fall, spread a three-inch layer over your vegetable beds. This provides a good mulch during the winter, and can be worked into the soil in the spring before planting.
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Use chicken manure as a fertilizer during the growing season. Work it into the soil around the vegetable plants and water thoroughly.
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Tips & Warnings
Always wear gardening gloves when handling manure.
After harvesting your vegetables, wash them thoroughly. Pregnant women, children under six months of age, and those with compromised immune systems should not consume raw vegetables that have been grown using manure.
