Growing in 100% composted cow manure with mixed results

Hi - this year I started a new garden and order aged & composted cow manure from a local farm and am getting very mixed results, so not sure what to do to improve:

The good: Lettuce, tomatoes, zucchini; these did amazing and can barely keep up with the yield
The bad: peas, spinach, onions, and bush beans were yellow and just did awful. They barely grew and needed a ton of organic fertilizer or compost tea throughout the season.

I thought maybe it could be too much or too little nitrogen but the inconsistency has me puzzled (you can see in the image). Has anyone else used this as a sole growing bed medium?  Any ideas for what I could mix in this fall to prepare for next season?

Different plants have different nutrient requirement so I feel that why you are seeing mixed results.

We never ground in straight composted cow manure due to the possibility of it burning the roots of the plants.

We mix the composted cow manure directly into the soil for 6 to 8 inches.

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For the peas and beans, do you apply some inoculant of nitrogen fixing bacteria? They can take a while to develop relationship with legumes if the composted manure has little in it. Tomato and summer squash love heat and spinach is a cool season vegetable. The latter may not like the high temperature in the root zone from the dark colored manure.

Anne Miller wrote:

We mix the composted cow manure directly into the soil for 6 to 8 inches.

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Thanks for the reply - I think I will try mixing the soil this fall. This garden started this as a 'no dig' style prep due to the rocky New England soil here, but it should have softened a bit after a season with more roots and compost on top.

May Lotito wrote:For the peas and beans, do you apply some inoculant of nitrogen fixing bacteria? They can take a while to develop relationship with legumes if the composted manure has little in it.

Great idea! Never would have thought of that but now that you mention it, I had noticed the compost was very sterile. Originally I thought a heavy dedication to legumes in the first year would help enrich the soil but they actually did the worst. Having zero weeds in the garden was nice but on the flipside there isn't a lot of 'life' in it.

Agree with the first reply above. The upside is that by next spring it will be a very nice layer on top the soil, very rich. If it were me I'd till this first layer in and use that as your seed bed. Lay a new layer in bands alongside the rows but not right on top next spring. Putting a thick layer down now so it decomposes over the fall winter and spring is nice too.

Even most weeds won't grow right in manure though a few seem to really like it.

The beans, peas and onions need good draining soil. Maybe the compost was holding a bit too much moisture ?

Other than that you could check the ph of the soil, i believe the ones that did good all need more acidic soil. Remember each point up or down is 10 times more calcium or acidic like the difference between 6 and 7 is tenfold.

Adam Dylan wrote:Thanks for the reply - I think I will try mixing the soil this fall. This garden started this as a 'no dig' style prep due to the rocky New England soil here, but it should have softened a bit after a season with more roots and compost on top.

If you're really going for the Charles Dowding No Dig style, then I think you're not supposed to dig the compost in at all, but just add more as mulch every year. Or maybe it's recommended to mix it in, the first year, but after that only add compost on top of the soil. It sure looks like he gets good results, so it would be worth trying his advice exactly. Or try digging in the old compost in one bed, and leaving it on top in another, add new compost to both in the spring, and compare.

When I started growing a new garden in barren desert soil, green beans did really badly the first year. The plants were 4 inches tall, and each one had one or two grizzled beans dangling down to the ground. But turnips (surprisingly to me) did well in the new soil amended with compost, each year as I expanded the garden stage by stage. I kept most beds covered with mulch permanently (not Dowding's compost mulch, but Stout style mulch of any leaves, wood chips, sticks, straw, and stems I could muster). The soil improved DRAMATICALLY the second year and onwards, under the continuous mulch. It fluffed itself up and turned darker and damper. And in general, plants grew much better.