Swimmer360
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Question about manure vs fertilizer for a vegetable field

Hello,
I am turning my field into a small farm ( it is about 3 acres) and I am going to grow vegetables. Most people advise spreading manure every couple years to keep the soil fertile, but I do not have access to the 400 yards of fertilizer I need, nor the capability of spreading it....

Does applying fertilizer yearly work to make my field more fertile for growing?

Thanks!

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rainbowgardener
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. "Most people advise spreading manure every couple years to keep the soil fertile, but I do not have access to the 400 yards of fertilizer I need,"

Sorry, but your question isn't very clear. Title says manure vs fertilizer, but when you talk about "400 yards of fertilizer" it sounds like you are talking about manure again.

"Does applying fertilizer yearly work to make my field more fertile for growing?" Do you mean manure or synthetic fertilizer. ?

The basic response is yes. Anything you grow takes nutrients from the soil, which must be replaced. If you happen to have very rich organic soil, you could probably grow crops the first year without added nutrients, but after that the soil would need to be replenished.

So then what about manure vs fertilizer. Manure must be well composted or else it must be laid down in the fall and nothing planted until spring. It is much less concentrated form of nutrients, but you can apply as much as you want of it without burning the plants. It is slower to release nutrients. Synthetic fertilizers are very concentrated, so are used in small amounts and can be dangerous to plants if over used. They don't work very well with the microbiotic life of the soil and used over time tend to build up harmful salts in the soil.

Personally, I don't use either. I compost everything (kitchen scraps, pulled weeds, yard trimmings, and the straw bedding from the chicken coop after our hens have "enriched" it). I use my finished compost on the garden. And I always keep my soil well mulched, with fall leaves, bedding straw, grass clippings, shredded paper, pulled weeds or whatever organic I have around. The mulch gradually breaks down to feed the soil.

However, I understand if you are talking about acreage, it is difficult to create enough compost to do much good and it would be very labor intensive to keep it all mulched. That's out of my range. I'm a backyard gardener with about 500 sq feet of raised bed veggie gardens, which I garden very intensively (plus a bunch of flower gardens, many containers of herbs, and a mini orchard of fruit trees).

Your property is 3 acres, but how much of it will actually be in vegetable gardens? Do you have much gardening experience? Do you have experience gardening on this scale? If you are really talking about an acre or more of actual veggie gardens, then you will be talking about power equipment for laying down the manure or fertilizer.

imafan26
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I agree with Rainbow. If you are going to intensively plant anything you will eventually need to replenish the soil. That being said, most people are not going to put in acres of garden unless they are planning to market the produce or have a large family and storage space. A 3 acre garden is not a beginner garden and not a size that can be easily managed by one person without expertise or equipment. Even a large garden of 1000 ft would take up a lot of time to set up. If you don't put in sprinklers, it would take hours to water by hand, not to mention the time you need to spend weeding, pest control, planting, tying, harvesting, and post harvest washing and processing.

Manures need to be hot composted or aged, or you risk pathogens that could get into the plants like salmonella and e coli.
Organic fertilizers are slow release and bulky. They don't contain a lot of nutrients and it can take up to two years for all of the nutrients to be slowly released.

Synthetic fertilizer nutrients are readily available to plants, and you don't have as much volume to disperse, but it does not help build soil. It would be best to get a soil test to find out what you need to add for your crop or you can easily add to much and waste money on fertilizer you do not need or have too much excess fertilizer that would be detrimental to the environment in the long run. Different plants will have different needs and if you are a beginner, it is better to start small with a limited number of plants until you get to know their needs.

If you plan to farm acres at a time, you will need to have some equipment to do some of the work. It would be hard to farm that much without it. Besides planting, you will need to set up irrigation, weed and pest control. Managing plants by tying and staking, harvesting, post harvest processing and storage. Fertilizing and adding organic matter would have to be done after each crop to replace what is taken out from the soil. You will need to till or compost the plant residues and mulch to control weeds.

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Gary350
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I know what your talking about I grew up on a farm. We had, 20 cows, 6 pigs, 10 chickens they don't make enough manure to fertilize our 40 acres and it is not possible for anyone to afford to buy enough manure for 40 acres. This is why commercial fertilizer was invented. Even with cows, pics and chickens it was not worth our time and effort to put that small amount of manure on our 2 acre family garden that fed, 2 grand parents, 12 aunts & uncles, 18 cousins.

As a home gardener the best thing to do is put what manure & compose you have on the plants that need it most. Even if I had manure from 20 cows for my 35'x60' back yard garden that would not be much for the whole garden but it could be used on a few plants that need it most.

If you buy Urea for nitrogen it is not a nitrogen plants can use this fertilizer depends on calcium in the soil to slowly convert to a different type nitrogen plants can use. It is best to add Hydrated Lime $9 per 50 lb bag + Urea to the soil 3 months before planting a garden.

Corn needs lots of nitrogen.

Buy 4-4-20 fertilizer for potatoes & tomatoes.

Rent a tractor with tiller from a local rental company. Tractor rental here is $100 a day rent it Saturday evening when store closes at 4pm it does not have to be returned until 8am Monday morning. That should give you plenty of time to till 3 acres. If rental store has a cultivator for the tractor make sure your row spacing matches the cultivator most are for 32" row spacing. After garden grows several weeks corn needs to be no less than 20" to 24" tall to cultivate rent the tractor again to cultivate the whole garden. A garden tiller will work fine for a cultivator push it as fast as you can walk you only need to till top 1" of soil to kill grass & weeds..

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jal_ut
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Quote: "Does applying fertilizer yearly work to make my field more fertile for growing?"

Yes. Apply manures in the fall and till them in. In the spring get a bag of ammonium nitrate and sprinkle it on the entire field before planting. Have fun!



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