Allotments 4 All

As a Lottie "virgin" I expect my ignorance will git me into all sorts of trouble, but having read a recent thread on Pumpkins/Squash I was intrigued to read about growing on the compost heap!  I over ordered farm yard manure this year and now have a great steaming heap in the corner of my plot. The aforementioned cow poo is over a year old and I wondered if I could put it to use by planting Pumpkins on it. Am I out of my gourd or can it be done?
Love the site     Cider swigging Chris

I'm doing it!  As well as pumpkins, squash and courgettes in it I'm also doing spuds. Might do beans and a cucumber or two as well.  My manure is fresh (well about a month old now) but because I've got so much of it and got no digging done I thought I'd grow directly in it.

I've got The Allotment DVD's and it shows it being done.  They put plastic sheeting over the spuds and cut slits to allow growth to come through

There's a post on here by EJ I think who has done it and has been successful

I've grown spuds on my compost bin stuff and I just earthed them up with more garden compost.  Very easy to harvest as no digging to do.  They were excellent

I always do it and end up with more squashes than you can shake a melon at!  I do a couple in my compost heap which will have a good couple of foot in depth of hot horsey poop.  I make a well in the manure, bung a couple of handfuls of potting compost in the hole, plant the squash in that compost, water well and forget about it.  When I plant squashes out on the plot I dig a hole, a spade wide and spade deep, fill with hot manure then cover with the soil so you have a mound and plant in the top of that.  Sometimes the squashes can look a little sickly for a week or 2, but once they get going, wow do they romp!  I do not give mine any extra water either, and they do just fine.  I am also going to grow a watermelon on the plot and Ava has made me a glass frame for it to grow under, plus I will heap some hot manure up the sides of the glass a little to make it really toasty!  ;D

Just to second EJ, I grew pumpkins on piles of fresh manure last year and they were lovely great things. You can see them on the pumpkins thread. It's a good way of using a bed you haven't dug yet, in fact it pretty much kills the weeds off, I'm growing shallotts and roots on that bed now -still not dug.

Jeremy

I'm glad to hear that this no dig lark is a succcess as I really aint fit enough to get me spade out just yet.  Chiro again tomorrow.  I'm raring to go though with pumpkins and squash, courgette etc in the old horsey poo (well new actually)
Got the spuds in it already.  I'd like to get beans and corn in it as well.  As well as horsey poo I've got dollops of cow dung as well.  Aren't I lucky  ;D

I heard a great way of including them in a crop rotation. Before tatties when the soil is richest is the way im tryin. :D