Hi Offwego, if your horse manure is fresh, (less than 6 weeks old), how about making a hotbed with it? Contain it in 4 pallets tied with baling twine for example. Water it every foot or so and trample it down as you go and it should then generate a lot of heat as it decomposes. Make a lid to contain the heat, I use old glass shower doors or a wooden frame covered with polythene. You could then sit your seed trays on top to germinate your seeds early, I usually cover with cardboard to make a barrier on top of the manure. If this heap is about a cubic metre, the bottom heat should last at least a month.
Obviously, being fresh manure, you can’t plant directly into it because the roots would just be burnt by the ammonia etc. but after a month or so, you could put about 6 inches of a ‘growing medium’ such as home-made compost, spent growbags or bought multipurpose compost on top and grow shallow rooted crops in it such as Paris Market carrots etc. Later, say around May, you could plant a squash or courgette in it grow it with the lid off. Next year, you will end up with just under half a cubic metre of well rotted manure to put on your no-dig beds.
Win win!
The best time to make the most of hotbeds is early in the year, say from mid January, to take advantage of the slowly increasing daylight.
Charles has examples of his hot-beds in his videos.
And here’s a link to one I made in 2017, (I haven’t had the discipline to keep the website up to date I’m afraid!)
https://alottyj.weebly.com/hotbeds-2017.html
Jeanette
