Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat

Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: Dirty Shovel on February 15, 2011, 18:02

Title: adding manure and is it good for carrots and parsnips?
Post by: Dirty Shovel on February 15, 2011, 18:02

hey all..i have only been growning a few years and very new to all this and this is my first of many questions.
i keep reading about not to grow some vegetables in recently maured groung,well how recent is recent? i have made raised beds for this year and put horse manure in them maybe 5/6weeks ago now,the dung wasnt that old when i put it in,will i be able to grow carrots and parsnips in these raised beds this year,
any info would be great thanks, Darren.

Title: Re: adding manure and is it good for carrots and parsnips?
Post by: Yorkie on February 15, 2011, 18:09

I wouldn't advise it if you have another unmanured place to put them.  That being said, they should still grow but they are likely to fork - interesting shapes but can be very difficult to clean / peel / cook / eat.

Title: Re: adding manure and is it good for carrots and parsnips?
Post by: daisy1990 on February 15, 2011, 18:16

would agree with Yorkie.  Also depends how well rotted the manure was.  Some stables in an attempt to get rid of dung advertise it as well rotted when it is quite fresh and will burn veg

Title: Re: adding manure and is it good for carrots and parsnips?
Post by: Dirty Shovel on February 15, 2011, 18:35

even if by the time i will be planting seeds the manure will have  been in the bed maybe  3/4months,some of it was very fresh i think,but even now it has broke down till near nothing in the beds?

Title: Re: adding manure and is it good for carrots and parsnips?
Post by: Yorkie on February 15, 2011, 18:51

It's not just whether it's been rotted down for long enough.  It's that root crops like carrots and parsnips do not grow well on recently-manured soil.  Which yours is  :)

Title: Re: adding manure and is it good for carrots and parsnips?
Post by: Kristen on February 16, 2011, 08:14

If you haven't got other vegetables to put in that space then I would go with Parsnips.  They may well fork - about 20-25% of mine do anyway. The "fingers" provide skinny parsnip pieces, and the "shoulders" provide chunks.  The real problem is where the fingers meet the body as soil gets trapped in between, so you basically have to throw that bit away.

But I still get plenty of shoulder, and one, two or several! fingers when they fork.

Carrots are not quite in the same league ... forked carrots are generally not a lot of use. You could grow a stumpy variety or grow them in pots.  I grow pretty much all mine in pots because I find it easier. I mix some old multi-purpose compost (left over from growing something else last season) 50:50 with sharp horticultural sand in pots that are about a foot in diameter, and about a foot deep.  I sow one every couple of weeks or so.