[nataiva]

Hello everyone,

hope those rains will soon stop and we will be blessed with warm sunny days to spend quality time on our allotments (ignore frost warning in May)!

Recently I got my hands on (almost literally) continuous supply of "freshly made" horse manure. I used some of it making a deep bed for my cabbages. I thought by the time roots will get to the manure layer it will be in right form for the plant to benefit from. Did I make a mistake? Does it have to be well rotted manure? I am worried now. Would be greatful for an advice.

Regards,
nataiva

[Ivor Backache]

I too have a good source of fresh horse manure. It needs to be composted. So I build a compost heap of manure layered with cardboard/paper and leave for 6 months. Fresh manure I put on my normal compost again in layers.

I did some research on composting horse manure and as a rule of thumb, if the manure touches the vegetable.. 6months, if not 3 months.
So cabbages,  tomatoes etc 3 months. Potatoes 6months. Seems to work for me.

[nataiva]

Hi,

thank you for your reply. Will have to wait and see now as the bed is ready and can't be undone and cabbages need to go somewhere in 3 weeks time...

Regards,
nataiva

[Kleftiwallah]

Thinking about it, if you can get the fresh muck deep enough so the roots don't reach,  and as in the case of a hot bed (which in essence it is) will help the plants get a good start.

You have got me thinking now.      Cheers,     Tony.

[nataiva]

Thank you Tony,

that was my thinking. But if it takes between 3-6 month for manure to rot - my cabbages next year will be really great...

You live and learn. It's only my 2nd year of serious gardening, still a lot of learning to do.

Nataiva

[Mrs Bee]

We did some hot beds last year with fresh horse manure, more because the local horticultural club had run out of rotted and we had to resort to fresh.

Don't know if we were lucky or it was a fluke 'cos we planted straight away and had the best celeriac we had grown to date.

We have a new lotty and the soil was claggy clay and we were building the raised beds as quickly as we could because of the back log of seeds that needed to be planted before we lost them. We  had nothing to loose.

The summer and winter squash were brilliant too.  We are going to do the same thing on the top part of the lotty this year too for the squash, celeriac, and aubergines.

[gremlin]

I know I could get banned for admitting to watching GW but I saw this (by accident, honest)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00r9xf5

[yorkiegal]

how deep is deep? I'm doing raised beds on my plot because of the flooding issue but want to break up the very claggy clay soil underneath by adding lots of manure and compost to it so that it drains better. If I double dig will that be enough? I'll probably be growing onions, peas and beans. The rest of the plot is just going to have green manure grown on it this year.

[nataiva]

I am not a veteran in gardening but I dug a spade-deep, filled quater-third of the depth with manure and covered the rest with soil from the next digging. So all in all - my deep bed is just under spade-length deep.

[compostqueen]

I've often planted in fresh poop and it's been fine. If you've nothing else you have to use it

I wouldn't sow my seeds in it mind you 

I planted strawbs, toms, beans, courgettes and squashes. It might not be textbook but necessity is the mother of invention

[Mrs Bee]

I know I could get banned for admitting to watching GW but I saw this (by accident, honest)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00r9xf5

Thanks for that Gremlin. We did something similar without realising

But that clip from GW has given me food for thought for next January. Always great to see something demonstrated. Books are great but a demo is even better.


Will show hubby.
Thanks again.


Also great to get reassurance from Compost Queen that we have not been totally off the wall with what we have been doing. 

Totally agree with necessity being the mother of invention.

[nataiva]

In addition to my original post.

In April I did a deep bed for my cabbages using fresh manure. Now my cabbages are doing really well, they look healthy and are so big even local allotment sharks admire them with respect!

[Wellpotty1]

I know I could get banned for admitting to watching GW but I saw this (by accident, honest)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00r9xf5

Oh! Is this a bad thing then??? I used to watch but.. Monty Don just seems out of touch; unless you have a massive heritage park like garden, all the time in the world and at least 5 spare labourers & "plantsmen" to sort out the estate! I may be speaking out of turn but I enjoyed it when Toby Buckland was doing the show. Real gardening for people who actually want to learn something.