We are brand new to organic gardening and created a 20 by 30 foot garden(a start).. We bought "organic" soil - enough for about 10 to 12" deep.. We've been advised to add cow manure in the fall on top of the soil. We can get cow manure "fresh" from local cow farmers, but they are not organic farmers... so the question is, can we use the local manure, and still have a chemical / hormone free soil for our veggies.. We also understand cow manure brings a lot of weed seeds, thus should we bury the manure? Thanks to anyone who response - we are at ground zero!!!

Cow manure is a product of the cows - seems simple enough right? This includes the feed they eat and whatever the cows are injected with. So the short answer to your question: is cow manure organic? - it depends upon your definition. If you go by the National Organic Program (NOP) - not unless the feed was certified organic and they cows were not given any non-approved drugs.

Learn the specifics at http://www.ams.usda.gov/nop/NOP/standards.html

goorganic,

Don't worry aobut the weed seeds as long as you compost the manure first. I wouldn't put the fresh manure directly into the garden--it can "burn" your plants. Composting will take care of the excess nitrogen, as well as "cooking" any weed seeds so that they don't sprout. The manure will also speed up the composting process with any leaves, grass clippings, etc that you can add in. You might check with your local farmers to see what they DO give their cattle, then get manure from the one(s) who use the least amount of stuff on their cattle.

Check out this article I wrote on composting various animal manures:

http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/lists/organic/2003082510028156.html

Happy Gardening!