Manure or something else?

Hi,Annie10, equipoo (OK horse muck) is used as a soil conditioner but has little nutritional value. Depending what you are thinking of planting, some crops don't do well in freshly manured ground. A general slow release fertiliser commonly used is blood, fish and bone.

Putting a good layer of well rotted horse manure under your potatoes will help to retain moisture to act as a 'reservoir'. As for brassicas, they like the ground to be firm, horse manure tends to break it up. If you put a layer of horse muck on as a mulch now, by the time you come to plant next year,the worms should have done their work and incorporated it into the soil structure, it's also a good way of supressing annual weeds.

so will it be of benefit to add a few sacks of horse manure to the area or is a general fertiliser a better bet

at the moment the area is raised by about 9 ins and is 20 sq mtrs.
there is more room to add other beds when needed but hubby had enough double digging 20mtrs so wont ask him to do more till next week.
i'll add some manure to the whole bed and use general ferts in the spring and then maybe dig another 25 sq mtr bed for roots veg et.
does that sound like a good plan?