When I'm making weedless waterless gardens, the first thing I do is cut down the area the cardboard or plastic is going on and then spread a layer of manure and then put down the cardboard or plastic. Manure straight from the barn does not (should not) smell strong. If it does - the animals are being abused with ammonia odors and that's not good animal care or you have too many animals.

Keeping barn bedding in good condition isn't hard. It takes less time and money to take care of animal bedding than having sick animals with hoof rot, parasites or other maladies. Spreading lime (which eliminates urine smells), potash to kill bacteria and viruses and which also absorbs moisture and odors, adding microbes like bokashi and mycylium to kill parasites and break down droppings only takes a little time to do. The end result is healthier animals, less time cooking compost before using it and no odors.

We make compost from the barn animal bedding and use it as our potting soil and a "base" for most or our plantings. To make the richest compost from animal manure, we add lime, potash (wood ashes), kelp (which is actually given directly to the animals first), bokashi (made from tea mushrooms), mycylium (see below) and rock dust. We add diatomaceous earth over the stales to keep flys, fleas, ticks and other insects down on the farm. These things are all spread around the barn stales in the bedding while the animals are using it to keep down parasites, disease and odor.

My recipe for adding mycylium is -in a blender mix - 1/2 cup peroxide, 1/4 sugar, some fresh mushrooms and fill the blender 1/2 full with water and blend till its all liquid. This gets sprayed on animal barn bedding to break it down and whatever is left on the compost pile.

The other microbial mix I make is kombucha tea mushroom mix which is a symbiotic mix of yeasts, mushrooms and pro-biotic bacteria. Never use the Mother Mushroom but subsequent batches of mushrooms can be used.

Note that the bedding is taken out in spring and piled to finish composting. It needs a "tipping" occationally but in a few months its "cooked" and ready for whatever plants are being planted.

We have 3 types of compost - human, runament and chickens. The chicken manure is higher in calcium and copper and the runament is higher in microbial population. Human manure is treated the same way as animal except it is cooked longer. See Nutrient Dense Foods. All cooked manures have proven to be some of the richest, nutrient rich soil.

You can not use any manure (even cooked) the first year on leafy greens. you can grow leafy greens after a good freeze on the soil. I do not use human manure except on the orchard, field crops for hay and clover, corn and beans. The thing about humanure isn't the worry about bacterial growth if you have added enough mycylium and kombucha, its that it may contain medications.

To use straight manure -

Tea-Put a heaping scoop of manure in a cheese cloth and soak in several gallons of water. Take out the cheese cloth and water your plants. When using for transplanting, add willow branches to the soak for less transplant shock.

Side dress plants with fresh manure - when planting put the plant in one hole and next to it - plant some manure. The plant will not burn but send roots to the manure to collect the nutrients it needs. You can also side-dress plants by putting composted manure around their base and lightly "scratch in". But try not to disturb the root system.

For row crops - plow a trench and put manure on the bottom then cover and plant. By time the roots get to it - it will be "cooked".