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Thought I'd drop in to this discussion as I'm about to buy 2 tonne of cow sh*te for £20 from the local farmer.

My plan (because it's very green unmatured) is to build a hot box to store it in. Having seen Gardeners world the other night apparently you put in your muck, turn it once a week for 2 weeks, leave it a week then add to the top 1/4 of the muck thickness in top soil.

Then you can plant melons,pumpkins etc that like a bit of bottom heat and nutrients. By the time you harvest them in the autumn the muck is ready to spread on the lottie to break down over winter.

That seems like a grand idea!
I wonder where i could make one of those....

love that last idea

Gidday

When I was a boy we had a small herd of cows. We would use a square mouthed shovel to pick it up off the cowshed yard and through it over the rails to where we had our main vege garden.

Of course there was too much for most of the garden so the bulk of it was just thrown onto a heap. We then planted our pumpkins on that heap of cow sh!t and they would reall grow wild, even though more sresh stuff was added to the heap daily. I never saw any sign of even the small seedlings being burnt by it, but they were the best pumpkins I have ever eaten.

Jack - thanks for your post. I'm giving your method a go. I love the simplicity of it.

Jack, are you about? Or anyone else who can help?

I did exactly as Jack suggested - chucked a load of seeds on a big pile of manure and I have the most spectacular and enormous pumpkins growing now. Fantastic! Will definitely be doing this again next year!

But they are quite close together and being new to all this I just want to ask should I cull a few to allow the others to produce more or just leave them? Consulting a gardening book tells me that they should be 6 foot apart and they are not even 1 foot apart! Is light and space an issue if I leave them to their own devices? They are mainly a giant pumpkin variety but there are normal ones in there too.

Can you make paper out of it like the chap on the f-word with sheep poo?

I collect it foc from the fields and leave to rot for 6 months. Loads of worms:-)

burek wrote:Jack, are you about? Or anyone else who can help?

I did exactly as Jack suggested - chucked a load of seeds on a big pile of manure and I have the most spectacular and enormous pumpkins growing now. Fantastic! Will definitely be doing this again next year!

But they are quite close together and being new to all this I just want to ask should I cull a few to allow the others to produce more or just leave them? Consulting a gardening book tells me that they should be 6 foot apart and they are not even 1 foot apart! Is light and space an issue if I leave them to their own devices? They are mainly a giant pumpkin variety but there are normal ones in there too.

The problem with pumpkins are that they are very thursty and greedy.
So long as they have plenty of moisture, they have loads of nutrients right under them, so you should be alright.

However mildew due to poor airflow might be a problem, it is normally any way. Keep an eye on them. I'd trim some of the large leaves, especially around the pumpkin. Also you might want to raise the pumpkin onto straw or something to stop it getting rot. Space is going to be a big issue depending on the variety. They can take over completely. Do you want lots of small pumpkins or are you going for size. If it's size, just make sure once you have one pumpkin developing you pinch out all the other ones.

great answer cheezy - many thanks. just the sort of reassurance and tips I needed!

Gidday

You can see what I mean about it not burning plants Eh Burek!

Yes Cheezy is right, so long as your heap of crap is big enough and they get enough moisture then then they will grow big. But because they grow so vigorously they can get a bit of fungi disease if left on the ground, so the answer there is let em grow up a fence. Sorry I should have said to put the heap by a fence or some rails.

Cow manure is a great fuel, here are some of the ways to use it. All of them work best if you let it dry as 'patties'. That is when it hits the ground it's round, flat and fairly thin. The thinner it is the better it drys.

1. Beekeepers: It's great to use in smokers, calms the bees more then grass clippings.

2. In India we have a woman who walks over our grounds picking up the patties, she takes them home and uses them as fuel for her fire.

3. Cow dung keeps flys away when it's dry. As such it's used as a building material in Sudan, Kenya and other parts of Africa. When you are building a wall with it you must throw the wet dung at the wall, then smooth it. The splatting action makes it stick. If you pat the dung on it will just fall off. Dung is a component part of the daub used with wattle to make walls in Europe.

For an amazing example of what can be done with dung google 'mosque djenne mali'.

4. The ash from burnt cow dung is supposed to keep flies away. The Nuer in Sudan would rub it on their bodies.

5. There is a compay somewhere who make paper from cow dung.