I have 4 ( hopefully 5 by the end of the month) small raised beds from which I grew potatoes, salads and currently brussels & kale. In preperation for next year what, as a newbie, should I put in the ground manure wise, ready for next year. I was thinking of getting some horse manure locally, is that enough?
As I still have plants in situ can I place the manure around it or must I wait until they are picked later on in the year?
Any advice gratefully received
Horse manure is good BUT NOT if it is mixed with wood shavings. The wood shavings rob the soil of nitrogen in the process of rotting down.
Chicken muck pellets or Blood, Fish and Bone are good chucked on a week or so before you start planting. Maybe some seaweed meal once or twice during the growing season.
Spreading manure around plants depends on how old (well rotted) the manure is and what the plants are. ;D Cheers, Tony.
Just a thought - I live about 6 miles from the sea and have seen lots of seaweed. Can I put this straight on the garden rather then putting it down as meal?
Seaweed is pretty good stuff, especially for spuds, tomatoes (and other GH tenders)...
I'd suggest horse (feild tailings can go straight in, stable manure needs rotting) with the caveat of doing a bean test for weedkiller contamination.
If I had adequate supplies of seaweed I'd be looking at a load of manure adn seaweed into the bed that going to be spuds next year (and somemore in the spring if you can), and manure in any bed that isn't going to be carrots/parsnips. Carrot/parsnip beds would get compost if I had any that was nice and fine.
You want to get a rotation going so that all the beds get an even amount of "love" over the long run...
Chicken pellets when you're digging through in the spring, and a dressing of BFB is very good too, especially for salads and gross feeders like spuds, depending on your soil youmight need to lime to keep your brassicas clubroot free, if you do then they should follow potatoes as spuds hate lime so you want to do it the next year to give the bed a couple of years without lime before spuds go back in....
If you have naturally limey swoil then you might want to put some flowers of sulphur in with your spuds and soaw scab resistant varieties like King Edwards and avoid badly affected varieties like Desiree.
chrisc
What a helpful thread. Thanks all.
I have always wondered about the salt on sea weed.
I am using lots of recycled, so far no major problems with it, except perhaps cleavers ( aka goose grass or sticky weed) seems to survive the composting process. I think the quality and availablity varies from area to area. But Wiltshire's is topnotch.