We highly recommend you get to know your local horse and dairy farmers. Every experienced gardener knows manure is an essential ingredient, for growing a prize winning pumpkin patch. Sure, you can grow nice pumpkins without manure. But, nothing pumps up your garden soil, like a big pile of well rotted horse or cow manure, mixed into the soil of your pumpkin patch.
Cow manure is considered the best for fertilizer and micro-nutrient value. However, it is sloppy and messy. Most gardeners find it difficult to handle and transport. That’s why horse manure, with more straw and a much drier composition, is preferred by home gardeners. If you don’t have ready access to horse or cow manure, other manures work well. This includes: Pig, sheep, chicken, turkey, bat, duck, geese, and just about any manure.
You can use raw (hot) manure in the Fall. Spread it across your pumpkin patch, and work it into the soil with your tiller. It will decompose over winter.
In the spring, only well rotted(decomposed) manure should be used. Raw manures, with a high nitrogen content, can burn your plant’s roots.
A few weeks after it has been in your garden, test your soil ph. Manures are acidic, can alter the ph. See soil ph. If the soil is too acidic, add lime.
