Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: dustcartkev on March 05, 2019, 20:56
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Hello everyone. Just wondering if anyone as grown root vegetables in a bed that as had chicken manure pellets put on. Thanks 😕
Title typo edited for future search purposes.
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Yes, no problem ;)
I apply them a week or so before sowing anything, to allow them to break down into the soil, a bit - water them in if the soil is dry and no rain is forecast.
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Agree with Mum - on sandy soil like mine, no fertiliser = poor crops.
Parsnips and carrots take a long time to germinate (and need to be kept moist at all times) so the pellets should have broken down and been incorporated well before the roots get there.
Spuds are not at risk of forking, so you can add pellets when planting, and also if necessary while they are growing (a sprinkling before earthing up is a convenient way of doing that.)
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Depending on when they were added you may need to add some extra phosphorous (P) and potassium (K) just to balance out any excess of nitrogen, as root veg need a bit more P to get going.
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Agree with Mum - on sandy soil like mine, no fertiliser = poor crops.
Parsnips and carrots take a long time to germinate (and need to be kept moist at all times) so the pellets should have broken down and been incorporated well before the roots get there.
Spuds are not at risk of forking, so you can add pellets when planting, and also if necessary while they are growing (a sprinkling before earthing up is a convenient way of doing that.)
That's great news thanks everyone 😕
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I'm experimenting this year with some left over "no rake" lawn moss pellets on my overwintering garlic - basically its slow release organic fertiliser with added "K" , so similar to onion/garlic fertiliser which tend to be high potassium.
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Hi
I can never understand why anyone would buy or use Chicken pellets as they are the lowest in nutrients of all the fertilizers I know off!
Also, they were the same price as both FBB and Growmore in the GC yesterday!
Their NPK is about,
4.5-3.5-2.5 or 4-3-2.5 in another brand
Growmore is
7-7-7
FBB is
5-5-6
Special potato is
15-21-24.5
No doubt someone will disagree and say they get wonderful crops using it but not for me!
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Whilst they are relatively weak, they have different NPK proportions to the others.
They do best for plants that need higher nitrogen levels.
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I may be wrong, but I've always believed that they add a little bit of natural organic matter to the soil - whereas the other fertilisers just feel like you're adding dust IYKWIM?
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Agreed MOS, plus they're a supplemental fetiliser, they don't need to be high strength, if you're soil is healthy and well cared for the more demanding plants just need a little booster.
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NPK analysis isn't the whole story - most of the nitrogen in dried chicken manure is in the form of organic compounds and is therefore slow release (more than a year before all of it is made available by the action of soil organisms.)
In practice, this means it should be regarded as more of a balanced fertiliser than the figures suggest.
Price-wise, it's currently being sold in Wilco for £5 for 7 kg, which I would think is cheap compared to most high street/GC prices for Growmore.
Against that is its lower overall NPK content, in favour (for some) is that it's a natural, sustainable product.
As for what works best for which crops, most of us can only try to guess what nutrients our soil may or may not be lacking and therefore whether a specialist fertiliser is or isn't required.
Each to their own - I mainly use dried chicken manure and some Growmore, and also a liquid feed if I think a quick fix is needed for leafy crops (most general purpose liquid feeds are high in nitrogen.)
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I tend to buy chicken manure pellets when they are on special offer and then add a handful or or two to each bed as I clear them ready for a new crop. Also add them to a bed if I think the veg need a bit of a boost. Mind you I am also using horse manure from the local stables hopefully reasonably well rotted. With certain exceptions such as herbs I don’t think I am likely to over feed the soil. The wet weather obviously tends to wash out nutrients from beds so I doubt I can do much harm adding as much organic matter as I can lay my hands on.
Cheers HH