Lorry-load of goat manure

[andrewsloan]

I have a lorry-load of goat manure arriving tomorrow which I plan to spread thickly onto the vegetable garden and leave it for a while. What I was wondering is whether to cover it with cardboard/papers and black plastic or just leave it uncovered?

[charles]

 whether you are covering weeds? annuals or perennials or both? how thick ithe manure will be? when and what you want to plant? – lots of the relevant info is under No dig vegetables banner, good luck in the heat.

[andrewsloan]

Fair comment. I have put a thick 2 inches layer of mature goat manure on 2/3 of the vegetable garden where I had previously spread compost and covered with plastic. When I took the plastic off it seemed to me that the compost was too thinly spread and not rich enough to start growing autumn vegetables in, hence the decision to apply the manure.
I intend to keep this manure under plastic until September and then start planting lettuce, spinach, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli etc.
I use a detailed lunar calendar (Artus Porta) which has a chart giving best dates for spreading compost and manure and the date I was spreading my manure was 26th july which is in a descending moon phase with an orange colour, a great day for doing this as the decomposting will work quicker.

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