Natural top dressing is more beneficial for soil and plants, so many summer residents switched to their use. Most often, bird droppings are chosen, chicken is especially good. However, you need to know how to properly prepare such a fertilizer, and for which crops to use.
What is good for plants and soil chicken droppings
The composition of chicken manure has many useful elements that are found in chemical fertilizers. He is not inferior to them, but even superior. So chicken manure:
- accelerates processes in the upper soil layer;
- positively affects crop yields and maturity;
- accelerates the process of photosynthesis;
- prevents the formation of mold on the surface of the soil;
- contains nitrogen in a form accessible to plants;
- It has a cumulative effect, due to which the soil is restored and enriched.
There are so many chemical elements in natural fertilizers that a small part of the litter is needed for feeding. However, you need to handle it carefully, a supersaturation with nitrogen leads to a riot of foliage, to the detriment of fruiting.
Important! Fresh chicken droppings are not used to feed plants.
How to use fresh chicken litter
Contrary to popular belief that fresh litter is not used in the garden, it is not. Fresh chicken manure is embedded in the soil, but not under the plants. Its introduction is allowed in the autumn for digging. Since it is very oily and rich in nutrients, it does not need much.
To evenly distribute the fertilizer, it is mixed with sand, ash, peat or other substances useful for plants. It can be mixed with earth in a ratio of 1: 1 and embedded in the soil.
Attention! Such fertilizer can be applied throughout the garden.
How to use chicken litter
The litter of the chicken coop is very useful, it contains not only chicken litter, but also other components. Enrich the litter in advance. Ashes, peat, straw, useful debris are poured onto the floors.
You can use chicken litter for composting and subsequent incorporation into the soil or as fertilizer. Most often, mulberries, fruit trees mulch it. It can be applied to the beds intended for growing cucumbers, zucchini and pumpkin. However, you need to do this in the fall, so that the litter has time to overtake. The bare roots of plants should not be in contact with it.
Features of the preparation of liquid feeding from chicken manure
To fertilize plants, fresh chicken droppings are diluted with water and insisted in a warm place. Each gardener has his own proportions and cooking options. However, before use, the infusion is diluted with pure water in a ratio of 1:10.
A simple option for liquid feeding
Fill a bucket or barrel with chicken droppings and dilute with clean water in a ratio of 1:10. The color of the mixture resembles tea leaves. Soak the infusion for two days in a dark place, after which it is ready for use.
Before use, mix the infusion well, dilute it with water in a ratio of 1: 1 and water the beds. For 1 square. m. area use a third of the bucket.
Fermented chicken litter top dressing
To prepare a useful top dressing for the garden, you need to use fresh chicken litter:
- Fill the plastic barrel with droppings, add water in a ratio of 1: 1. Close the barrel tightly.
- The solution is infused for 5 days, after which dilute and fertilize the beds.
It should be borne in mind that the infusion is very concentrated, in its pure form it is not used. To prepare a working solution of 2 tbsp mixture is diluted in a bucket of water 10 l.
How to compost chicken droppings
Most often, chicken droppings are brought into a compost heap, and I use ready-made humus for feeding plants.
So that the remnants are well composted, the pit is filled in layers. A layer of chicken manure is introduced, it is interbedded with weeds, sawdust, straw, ash or other useful organic residues. The height of the layers is not more than 20 cm, otherwise the compost may catch fire.
The compost pile is well watered and covered with a film to form a greenhouse effect. Compost ripening takes 3-4 months.
Inexperienced summer residents can not understand whether compost is ready. You can determine this by smell. If a strong smell of ammonia is heard, then the litter has not yet been re-read. Ready compost smells like ordinary garden soil.
Features of using dry or granular chicken litter
On sale you can find dry granular chicken litter, but not everyone uses it. And in vain! This is a completely natural top dressing that does not have a pungent odor; it does not contain weed seeds, bacteria, or fungi. Everything is achieved through a special process of processing fresh litter and its granulation. The chemical composition of this fertilizer is no different from the usual.
Insist dry litter as fresh. Liquid nutrient mixtures are prepared from it.
Basic rules for using chicken manure top dressing
Any fertilizer should be applied only on moist soil after heavy watering or rain. So nutrients are distributed evenly in the soil and do not harm the root system.
Chicken droppings can be used from the very planting of plants in the soil, but 2-3 weeks before harvesting, you should stop applying. Nitrogen accumulates in the fruit, which leads to the formation of nitrates.
Berry bushes and fruit trees are watered with manure only in the first half of summer, otherwise their winter hardiness decreases.
How to store chicken droppings
Fertilizer from chicken manure must not only be properly prepared, but also able to store it.
Most often, litter is stored in a compost heap. If it is loose, it will mature in 1.5 months. In a sealed pit, where thick layers of manure are delayed for 6 months.
Storage of chicken droppings on peat litter is allowed. To do this, fill the pit layer by layer with peat, droppings, garden soil. Peat should be the last layer to prevent evaporation. The pile is well compacted. This method is considered the most reliable, nitrogen evaporation is minimal.
Advice! Liquid infusions of chicken droppings are stored in tightly closed barrels so that no nutrients evaporate.
What plants is chicken litter suitable for?
A warning! Parsley, lettuce and other herbs, which are constantly eaten by chicken infusions, are not watered! Dressing for garlic and onions during the period of active vegetation is not suitable.
But cabbage, eggplant, tomatoes, garden trees and shrubs simply love this top dressing.
When feeding sugar beets, its taste improves, and the sugar content increases to 10%. Other root crops do not need to be fed chicken manure. The exception is only potatoes.
Use chicken droppings on strawberry beds in early spring, when young leaves appeared. The bushes themselves are not watered, but evenly spread liquid fertilizer or bedding in the aisles. With the beginning of flowering, such dressings stop.
Cucumber beds are mulched with chicken litter, and liquid fertilizers are added before flowering at the rate of 3 l per 1 sq. M. m
