[starry]

I sprinkled some chicken manure pellets over a bed where I had just pulled my onions up I wont be planting anything there now until next year but my neighbour thought that was a bit odd!
 is it?? I thought that would nourish the soil for next year?? I will be adding more manure and compost etc before next year as well was it a waste ??   :blink:

[JayG]

Dried fertilisers are designed to give a fairly quick nutrient boost to the soil, so the benefit is relatively short-term.

Compost and manure are mainly used to improve the structure of the soil, although they do help the soil retain moisture and therefore nutrients for longer.

A lot depends on the type of soil you have; sandy soils lose nutrients much more quickly than clay soils; even humus in the form of compost tends to disappear quite quickly if dug in in late autumn (the usual time for doing it.)

I do think that adding dried fertlisers to bare ground at this time of year is a waste of money though! 

[Aunt Sally]

Nitrogen in particular is washed out of the soil over winter.

[gillie]

Try sowing a green manure crop to 'hold' the nitrogen over the winter.

Gillie

[starry]

aahh so I see was a bit of a waste!! oh well good job it was only a sprinkle then I have a very sandy soil which I am gradually bulking up, with compost etc, so I wont be doing it again lesson learnt!!     

[Salmo]

As Gillie said, why not grow green manure, either mustard or phacelia, which will take up the nitrogen. Dig it in and the nitrogen will be released next Spring as the soil warms up and it rots. The ground cover will also protect the soil from being leached by Winter rains

[johnfh]

I gather that some manures/fertilizers should not be used together or at least added at the same time but I have little idea what these are. Also different crops benefit more from different additives (or none at all). A link to a list or chart that gives guidance on such matters would be useful to many of us I think - any offers ?

[Salmo]

Press "Growing Help" at the top. The information will be in there somewhere.

[johnfh]

Absolutely right! Thanks Salmo, a whole section devoted to this and every other conceivable growing topic.  Great site!!!

[Livinhope]

Nitrogen in particular is washed out of the soil over winter.

Query.  If this is the case is there any point in leaving the bean and pea roots in the ground after cropping?  It seems to be a contradiction.

[mumofstig]

the nitrogen in shop bought fertilizers is water soluble so washes out quickly, the nitrogen in the nodules on pea roots is not

[JayG]

Note that runner bean roots are pretty chunky and will probably still be there next year if you leave them in the ground (one year I covered them up with a load of compostable stuff I hadn't got bin-space for and they re-grew the following year; they are actually perennial in warmer climates than ours!)

Probably best chopped up and added to the compost heap. (Pea roots rot down much more easily in the ground, by the way.)

[hamstergbert]

...runner bean roots..... re-grew the following year...

Now there's an interesting fact!   

What were they like - cropping better/worse, earlier/later etc

Do tell, JayG!  (Oi feels a posse-bull hexperrimint a-comin' on)

[JayG]

...runner bean roots..... re-grew the following year...

Now there's an interesting fact!   

What were they like - cropping better/worse, earlier/later etc

Do tell, JayG!  (Oi feels a posse-bull hexperrimint a-comin' on)

This was pre-Munty frame days so I used to rotate the runner beans round the plot and needed the space. I guess I was taken by surprise as well so played safe and dug the poor things up, which is a shame in a way because each root had produced 4 or 5 strong shoots and looked ready for action!

Main problem that I can see is that the shoots appeared in April; keeping them alive until after the frosts would have been very touch-and-go, but the crop would have certainly been very early. Alas, I shall never know!   

[gillie]

I believe you can lift runner bean roots and store them over the winter like dahlia tubers to start in a greenhouse and grow again the next year.

However I don't know if there is any advantage in doing this!

Gillie