Topic: Is a veg/fruit plot sustainable without manure?

[lillian]

Is a veg/fruit plot sustainable without manure in the long term?

I compost all material ( except for diseased and highly pernicous weeds)from the garden and house.
I have 3 compost bins for clean material and 3 bins for weedy material. I process all weeds by drowning them for a month or heating them up in the sun  in a black bin 50:50 weeds/grass clippings and have a home made wormery on the go.

I cultivate nettles and comfrey for fertilizer. Use diluted urine as activator for the compost heaps and as a high nitrogen fertilizer. The only things I buy are 1 bag of compost for seedlings, lime, epson salts and the occasional box of growmore.
Do I need manure as well?

[allaboutliverpool]

No!

I use manure as well because I can get it from my local stables and as it is a new plot it still needs plenty of organic material.

My father always had vegetable plots and being of the old school, never spent money unnecessarily and never bought or acquired manure in his life.

http://www.allaboutliverpool.com/allaboutallotments_compost.html

I now have a compost page!

[Garden Manager]

Well if you had asked this question a few months ago i would have said it was perfectly possible as i run my fruit and veg plot without manure. I always seemed to get good results just by adding what home made compost i can spare, plus recycled pottting compost from ornamental containers and tomato pots.

However this year this does not seem to have been enough, despite putting on the usual amounts of compost, growth has been slow or poor. I know we have had some funny weather this year but then again this is nothing new! I have started to wonder if the problem was with the soil, Ie not enough organic matter to hold onto nutrients, which were then easily leached out by high rainfall.

What finaly convinced me i should do more to my soil was when i went to do some work for a client with a large veg plot. He regularly manures his plot and i couldnt help notice how much better the growth was for plants such as lettuces, runner beans and potatoes. I could easily compare the growth rates since many of the coresponding crops were planted at a similar time to mine at home (i know because i planted them!).

Having decided to do something about my soil I now have to find a source of some kind of manure. Despite being in a rural area it is not that easy to find a good sourse and i am now a bit wary of farmyard manure with this recent weedkiller contamination problem. Horse manure might be the next best thing but whilst I know of a few people with horses, the stables concerned seem strangely reluctant to let go of their manure. The alternative would have to be to buy it in in bagged form from the garden centre, but that would start to get expensive for a decent quantity.

To sumarise and answer your question. Yes a fruit/veg plot is sustainable without manure but only for a short time. Eventualy you will need to use it.

Hope this helps

[ceres]

GA, stable manure has been just as contaminated with weedkiller as farmyard manure.  In fact, from those I've heard of I'd say that more of the people reporting the problem have got it from stables than farmyards.  That might just reflect though that it is generally easier to get supplies from stables as they have no other use for it whereas farmers do.  Also, I have come across a couple of reports of bagged products being contaminated too.  The RHS is aware of this.

Unless/until the legislation is changed to prevent sprayed material getting into the supply chain for compost/manure, I think we should all be very wary of buying in any manure/compost products. 

[BAK]

Green manuring surely has a role to play at this time. It is not a complete answer but it will supplement homemade compost, comfrey, fertilisers etc if farmyard / stable manure is out of the question.

There are lots of links on the web if you need info. Here are a couple ...

http://www.rhs.org.uk/Advice/profiles0802/green_manure.asp

http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/pdfs/international_programme/GreenMan.pdf

[twinkletoes]

My problem is not that I don't want to compost - I am just not sure which weeds I can and cannot put in. I know I can't put bindweed and similar in.  I hear the phrase perenial weeds but to be honest I don't know which ones these are.  My problem is compounded because I do not know the names of the weeds so when I read answers that mention them I am none the wiser really. So, I usually end up sending quite a bit of stuff I know I could compost to the council tip in their garden waste space. Yes I am ashamed!!  :-[ :-[
twinkletoes

[tonybloke]

compost everything except the following, sow thistle roots (white/fleshy) dock roots (orangy brown, like a forked carrot) couch grass roots( bootlaces, cream/brown) Bindweed roots(white fleshy brittle) if you do miss any bits, they are easy to remove from compost.  ;)

[Ben Doowne]

I'm in the same position as you twinkletoes in that I have (had) no idea which weed was which. My solution is to Google for the weed name and then click on the images link at the top of the page. You will get a load of different pictures of the weed you searched for and they will really help you identify them.

My problem is not that I don't want to compost - I am just not sure which weeds I can and cannot put in. I know I can't put bindweed and similar in.  I hear the phrase perenial weeds but to be honest I don't know which ones these are.  My problem is compounded because I do not know the names of the weeds so when I read answers that mention them I am none the wiser really. So, I usually end up sending quite a bit of stuff I know I could compost to the council tip in their garden waste space. Yes I am ashamed!!  :-[ :-[
twinkletoes

[Rhubarb Thrasher]

Bob Flowerdews attitude is that you can compost "everything that ever lived". Perhaps a bit too much and probably illegal
I compost everything pretty much apart from brassica stems

[lillian]

Japanese Knotweed comes to mind

[Kea]

I haven't had any problems with brassica stems yet. My compost is doing really well at the moment. Last week there was a lot of 'green' vege scraps put in and I opened the lid today and it had all gone brown and almost soil like because it was full of ants who'd digested it all and mixed it. They were delighted when I threw in some more. I couldn't believe the speed this time, this is my third year composting and i haven't had that happen before.

[Tee Gee]

An interesting thread this, here is my tuppence ha'porth;

Is a veg/fruit plot sustainable without manure in the long term?

In my view No!

I compost all material ( except for diseased and highly pernicous weeds)from the garden and house.

I do this too!

My father always had vegetable plots and being of the old school, never spent money unnecessarily and never bought or acquired manure in his life.

A man after my own heart!!

I try to be as economical as I can so when I get the benefit of a discount on a product, I use this discount to buy the more expensive product I could otherwise not afford e.g. F1’s as opposed to run of the mill seed, meaning I spend my planned amount but get better value for my money.

not enough organic matter to hold onto nutrients,

Although I am well aware that farm yard or stable manure has a certain amount of fertilizer in it the amounts are incalculable, so I assume there is none, and add a measured amount of fertilizer to suit my needs.

I consider farmyard/stable manure to be a soil improver and moisture retention product, and as we all know; a plant needs moisture to survive more than fertilizer so this way I get the best of both worlds.

i am now a bit wary of farmyard manure with this recent weedkiller contamination problem.

I think we should all be very wary of buying in any manure/compost products.

I don’t want to sound complacent on this one and I do respect the issue but when you consider all the other things we eat/drink that are treated (contaminated if you like) we would starve or die of thirst if we avoided them.

I always think in terms of; where my bodies immune system keeps control of all these unknown additives I think a plants immune system will do so as well.

I compost everything pretty much apart from brassica stems.

I find these very useful in the bottom of a new compost heap to act as a drainage layer.

[ceres]

Tee Gee

I don’t want to sound complacent on this one and I do respect the issue but when you consider all the other things we eat/drink that are treated (contaminated if you like) we would starve or die of thirst if we avoided them.

It isn't just about whether we are consuming a safe/unsafe substance.  It's about a weedkiller killing plants or damaging them to the extent they don't crop or they crop poorly.

I always think in terms of; where my bodies immune system keeps control of all these unknown additives I think a plants immune system will do so as well.

I invite you to come and look at affected plots and see for yourself how well the plants' immune systems are coping.  My comments were made in the light of contamination with a known substance, aminopyralid, a new herbicide which works by disrupting the plant's metabolism.  It is currently implicated in hundreds if not thousands of cases of plant damage up and down the country.  The common denominator is contaminated stable and farmyard manure, and in a few cases commercially produced compost.

[allaboutliverpool]

I agree with Bob Flowerdew,

When I started my plot, I took all the weed roots that I had carefully dug out-
Mares tail
Couch grass
Japanese knot weed
Bindweed
Nettle
Dock
Ground elder
Thistle

The whole lot went into black plastic bags for a year and turned into rich compost as described on my compost page
http://www.allaboutliverpool.com/allaboutallotments_compost.html

[Robert_Brenchley]

I compost everything including docks, bindweed and couch. Couch has never yet survived in the compost bins over winter. Little bits of the other two have, when the original roots have been particularly massive. They were easily picked out of the compost and put back in the bins. Like Flowerdew says, if it once lived, compost it! I put dead rats in as well.

[allaboutliverpool]

I am interested in enriching my compost Robert, where do you get your rats from?

[grawrc]

 ;D ;D ;D

[Ishard]

If Im worried about weeds growing in the compost I simply lay them on some black plastic for a few days so the sun kills the roots then I compost EVERYTHING.  :)

[betula]

I am interested in enriching my compost Robert, where do you get your rats from?

I used to have a plot on Roberts site,before I moved house.It is a wonderful site but also has a rat problem............so lots of rats for Robert to put on his compost heap.

[caroline7758]

If Im worried about weeds growing in the compost I simply lay them on some black plastic for a few days so the sun kills the roots then I compost EVERYTHING.  :)

You must be having a hard time this year- sun for a few days??? I wish! ;D