Putting cow manure straight in the garden?

[stardust]

Hi,
Can I put cow manure straight in my garden without composting it? I usually put rye down in the fall as a ground cover. I was thinking that I would put the cow manure in the garden this fall and till it in. But I'm not sure I could put down the rye after I did that. I know it would be better to compost the cow manure before I put it in the garden,but I don't have a compost set up and I'm not able to do all the heavy turning a compost pile would need.So that is why I thought I'd put the cow manure right in the garden and till it in.
Thanks for any advice anyone can give me.

[lilinater]

that should be fine, you could try braking it up with something we have chickens and we did have geese pooping in are gardens and are plants got ten times there size hope this helped :)

[rainbowgardener]

If you till the manure in now and it can sit and break down over the winter, it should be fine to plant in by spring.

Otherwise, if you just make a pile of poop preferably layered with leaves and other "browns" (see Sticky in this Forum re greens & browns), you don't have to turn it, you can just let it sit and it will age itself nicely.

[applestar]

I don't know if the rye would germinate so soon after fresh cow manure has been tilled in. I think it would be better if you can wait to sow the seed -- 2 weeks? 1 mo?

Maybe if you can till some fall leaves in along with the manure, it would balance/spread things out a bit more? I suppose on the other hand, the manure may provide some extra warmth to help with the germination?

You could always try sowing right after, but be prepared to seed again if they don't come up.

[stardust]

Thank-you for your help. I think I'll just put the cow manure in a pile with leaves and let it compost and then add it to the garden when it's ready.Meanwhile I'll be putting a ground cover on the garden for the winter.

[a0c8c]

I'd be careful, manure is high in nitrogen and you're not supposed to fertelize plants until they're roughly 2 weeks old. Too high of a nitrogen content in the very beginning can burn sprout's roots.

[opabinia51]

I've put fresh manure (chicken which is "hotter" than cow) in my garden in the fall and seeded rye over it and it germinated just fine. But, ere on the side of caution.

[Jbest]

Just spread it, till it in and sow your rye seeds. Then jump back jack. John

[smokensqueal]

If I recall correctly but rye is really close to wheat and back when my dad was a dairy farmer he would combine the corn, spread as much cow manure on the field as he could, disk it in, then plant wheat for the winter. So I wouldn't see any problem doing that similar thing in a garden.