Bags of steer manure--ideas?

We moved and the new place came with almost a pallet of bagged steer manure. Any ideas about where to put it? I don't want to put it on the garden or the orchard. Most of the land is forested and native trees (conifers and cottonwoods) don't like fertilizer, generally. I know where there is a hawthorn and I'm going to put a few bags down there. And I've thought about ripping invasive weeds off a strip along the road and putting down wildflowers, yarrow, wild carrot, self heal, or maybe sunflowers. But realistically I don't have time, I just need to dump it somewhere. Any ideas?

Is this commercially bagged stuff? Advertise it and sell it as a lot -- must take all. Cash is always useful.

Hi Kris,
I agree that selling it or giving it away would probably be the easiest way to get rid of it. Personally I would save it and add it to a garden later. Or spread it thinly over the lawn. Or spread it thinly along the edge of the woods. Or build a raised bed and fill it up with the bags.

Personally, I always could use amendments on my property.

If I didn't want to sell it, I would probably make a pile tucked in a corner of the property and mix in lawn clippings/fallen leaves to just continue to grow the pile. Weather and nature is going to leach some of the good stuff out of it but creating compost mountain is my game.

Sounds like gold to many.

Some suggest selling it, but I think trading is a nice option.  If you go to a local farmer's market you might find someone with something of value that you want.

It might not be worth the time and hassle to sell it, but Facebook marketplace is pretty vibrant (although often frustrating). Local to me is selling a 50 pound bag of aged manure for 5 dollars.

It also depends on how many bags that you have.  I purchased finished manure for like 7 dollars for a 50 pound bag from retail.  The benefit here is that it is a known seller with tracked reliability in the industry.  You getting these second hand is even less credible.  This isn't any critique about you, but merely a statement about how some growers are very selective with what they put into their garden.

Be prepared for questions and tire kickers if you list online for sale. It is a big equation of "is it worth the time and stress".  Only you can do that calculation.

My choice would be to use the manure. It might need to be aged before you add it to you land. If this manure comes from steer grazed on your land, that would be even more reason for you to use this yourself.  The microbes will be specially adapted for your environment, and conditions there locally. You might think of using a few of the bags to give back some nutrients to the land, as some might suggest that all of the manure could have gone back into the land.

If steer grazed the grass, and all the manure is gathered, then the local ecosystem is losing out on a great deal of nutrients.  These type of animals really turn grasses into fertilizer effectively. I doubt that it is a situation that would create deficiency, but it is simply something that I would think about when deciding what to do with the soil.

Again, I am assuming this was grazed from the property, meaning that the manure is a portion of the nutrients meant for the land.  I don't know how efficient manure producers are, so I am kind of shooting in the dark here.  

Check out the PermacultureOrchard.  It is a growing system of planting vegetables in between trees.  There a few tours on YouTube, but there is a paid documentary out there.  Perhaps someone here has a link to some info about it as well.  While the industrial use is pairing fruit trees, one could do this similar in areas where you aren't completely shaded out.

Knock on your neighbour's door and say "Hi I've just moved in next door. Want some free manure?"

Nancy Reading wrote:Knock on your neighbour's door and say "Hi I've just move in next door. Want some free manure?"

HAHA! I love this idea!