Topic: Feeding my soil more

[chriscross1966]

For most of us chicken poo comes in a bucket of pellets from the GC..... anything else is just fowl play....

A cubic metre really isn't ernough manure for that area, especially if you are trying to play catch up with the soil.....  If you're anywhere near Swindon I don't moind dropping some off through the winter.... otherwise, I guess, targetted compost is the best way to go.... see if you can get council recycling compost delivered.... generally there's a fixed charge for delivery but the compost costs almost nothing,,,, or find a guy with a trailer who's well into you, pretend that you'll put out in exchange for haulage, let him down gently. after the delivery.....

[antipodes]

A cubic metre really isn't ernough manure for that area, especially if you are trying to play catch up with the soil.....  If you're anywhere near Swindon I don't moind dropping some off through the winter.... otherwise, I guess, targetted compost is the best way to go.... see if you can get council recycling compost delivered.... generally there's a fixed charge for delivery but the compost costs almost nothing,,,, or find a guy with a trailer who's well into you, pretend that you'll put out in exchange for haulage, let him down gently. after the delivery.....

;D ;D ;D
Well as I am in Brittany in France, it is a wee bit far from Swindon...
I am surprised by what you say as 1 m 3 seemed like an awful lot of poo last year!! I think I will have to start raiding the pony club again and make a big stack of stable waste and let it rot down in  a corner for later use.
We do have a trailer at our site for communal use but my car has no trailer hook...
I don't think our council does compost  :-\ :-\ But if they do they must keep it for their own use as I have never heard of them supplying any.
Might look into the chicken poo idea, there are a few organic poultry farms near us, I wonder what they do with their manure??

I must add that visually speaking, the soil doesn't seem too poor, it is sandy loam, a nice brown colour, crumbly and full of living things. weeds grow fine! I stay off the soil as much as possible, I mulch mainly with straw and cover where possible so in general it is a dream to dig, soft and aerated. But as the crops do so poorly, perhaps what you see is not necessarily what you get...

[kypfer]

I am in Brittany in France

... perhaps close enough to the coast to gather some seaweed ?

weeds grow fine!

... but that's why they're weeds, they can cope where more productive plants can't  ;)

[1066]

For the root veg - the beetroot seeds germinate OK, the carrots not very well, and I did sow them April/May when it was pretty warm. Then the carrots even after a few months are only as thick as a biro and about 10 cm long  :( :(  I just chuck them out.  I grew them in soil where I had dug in sand and a few handfuls of all purpose fertilizer (organic quality). Obviously that is not appropriate.

I wonder if it's the variety of carrots that you need to look at - I've never managed to grow huge carrots, but then I kind of like them on the small side anyway. I grow mine in a mix of compost and sand cos I'm on clay and haven't (as yet) got nice crumbly soil to sow into, so maybe look at the timing of sowing or the variety? Just a thought  :-\

BTW - it took me 3 attempts this year to get decent beetroot - the 1st 2 lots struggeld with the lack of rain! But the 3rd lot have been a success - so in the end worth it  :)

[chriscross1966]

Hmm... I'm woindering about the straw mulch.... It will add organic content to the soil but it will use up n utrients (especially nitrogen) while it rots... also there are some issues with herbicide residues, not just the famous aminopyralid one.... If you can get pony-club manure then it's a great idea, if I had a chicken farm near me I'd certainly be investigating over the winter. it'll stink but if you get it in during the cold weather you won't offend too many people...

For a sort of idea of quantities, I've just taken on my second allotment this year 9and am moving out of the first cos it's a long way from where I live adn trying to get another one on the same site as my second)... the plot is supposedly 125 square metres about 6m wide, bit over 20 long,  I've put a 1m³ bag of fairly fresh field horse manure in the first couple of metres when I was planting out som,e spare pepper plants. I'm expecting to use 8-10 more bags on there before the spring, along with probably a bag of coiuncil compost where the carrots and parsnips will go. If I can get more then I will cos it'll make growing spuds easier/bigger.. does depend a bit on the availability of another plot, it won't get quite so much if I have two cos the plants will be spaced out a bit mopre and I won't feel like I have to get everything as big as possible in a small space...

chrisc