Read also:
- 9 Food Scraps for Tomatoes
- How long can you compost horse manure?
- How to Use Horse Manure for Tomatoes
If you have a garden, there’s no question that you care about keeping it in good shape and getting the most out of your plants. It is good to understand why you’d want to ensure they’re nutritious and include lots of fruits and veggies.
When it comes to fertilizer, whether chemical or natural, you may be unclear which is best for your plants. So, which plants do not tolerate horse manure?
WHAT PLANTS DON’T LIKE HORSE MANURE?
Plants that dislike horse manure include tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, aubergines, root vegetables, and “mid-season” vegetables.
The high nitrogen concentration of horse manure promotes leaf growth but hinders fruit development in the aforementioned plants.
Too much nutrients will restrict rather than stimulate development in root crops such as carrots, beets, potatoes, radishes, and onions, which do not require fertilizer by nature.
Is it okay to use horse manure on flowering plants?
Horse dung is poor in potassium and phosphorus, making it unsuitable for fertilizing flowering plants such as roses. Apply horse manure to your blossoming plants in the following manner:
Combine horse manure with high potassium or phosphorus sources such as dried molasses, bone meal, or fish emulsion to enrich the soil surrounding blooming plants.
As a side note, because fresh horse dung includes a high concentration of ammonia, “mid-season” plants such as broccoli, lettuce, cabbage, peas, kale, and beans do not thrive under high concentrations of ammonia.
Horse dung contains a lot of ammonia. However, if you want to utilize horse manure in your garden, you must first compost it.
What Are the Real Drawbacks of Using Horse Manure?
If you’re concerned about putting horse manure in your garden, it’s critical that you understand what you’re getting yourself into. Knowing the hazards allows you to be certain that using horse manure is the best decision for you:
Nitrogen Content Is High
The nitrogen concentration of fresh horse dung is high. While this high nitrogen concentration may help certain plant species, it may harm others. As previously stated, raw horse dung is alkaline in nature, thus acidic plants and berries will not benefit from it.
Manure Containing Undigested Materials
Horses typically have difficulty digesting their meals. In layman’s words, there might be undigested objects in horse feces such as seeds and weeds. Obviously, these are not conducive to healthy plant development.
Composting Time Maximum
While composting horse dung helps a bit, horse manure takes longer to compost than other animals, which is a significant disadvantage.
How To Use Horse Manure As A Fertilizer?
Fresh horse dung should not be applied to plants since it may burn their roots. However, well-aged horse dung or manure that has been allowed to totally dry throughout the winter can be used.
You can utilize well-aged soil without fear of root burn. Of course, horse dung contains many nutrients that plants require, but it may also include weed seeds. That is why I advise you to use composted horse manure on your garden.
Composting horse manure creates heat, which efficiently kills weed seeds and dangerous germs in manure. Furthermore, you may use composted horse dung on your garden all year. However, you should avoid applying horse manure on plants that do not flourish on it.
Conclusion
So, which plants do not tolerate horse manure? To summarize, horse manure is not recommended for a variety of plants, including tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, cucumbers, root vegetables, and “mid-season” crops.
Before putting horse manure to the soil, be sure you compost it (if you are keen on using it).
Horse manure is a “not so excellent” alternative for your vegetable crop due to its high nitrogen concentration, undigested debris, and aminopyralid contamination.
