Farmyard Manure and top soil mixture proportions for greenhouse rasied beds?

Hi All, I am a relatively new member and novice greenhouse gardener. I have some raised beds in my greenhouse and I have both graded top soil (no added compost) and some 50 litre bags of organic farmyard manure. However I have no idea how much manure to add to each of the raised beds. The beds are roughly 1.5 m long 0.6 m wide and 0.4 m depth, so around 0.4 cu m each. Can anyone guide me as to how much manure to add to each bed? I will be growing a mix of Tomatoes, Sweet Peppers, Cucumbers, Spring Onions, Lettuces and Chillie Peppers with probably a sprinkling of herbs such as Basil and Sage etc. (if there's room , lol)

TIA, Keith.

 

It is a difficult question to answer, I tend to think you could easily over do it with things like tomatoes and peppers, but cucumbers would like a bit more.

 

Wouldn't use manure for growing tomatoes, because it can have the residue of weedkiller (even though saying organic). This will damage tomatoes plants.

 

As @Alisa mentions its a rather vexed point as manures can contain weedkillers as detailed in this post.
You also have to check that any of your own garden compost does not contain lawn mowings that many also contain harmful substances from any weedkiller treatments as typical garden compost heaps do not always fully breakdown everything.
Weedkiller in manure / RHS Gardening

We used to use such ready bagged manure in the greenhouse pots and garden but no longer, using things like Fish,Blood and Bone etc.

 

If they are like me, they will have mixed the manure with carbon rich materials to help speed up the decomposition. Mine is a mixture of horse manure, the waste mushroom casings and bark. The manure will account for about 20% of the mixture, but then we label it as a soil conditioner and not farmyard manure.

 

@gks we are a bit too far away to collect some of your soil conditioner/manure but wondered what your view is on the only regular one we see around - Westland Farmyard Manure ?
Would you be happy using it and that it does not have residue Weedkiller in it, or has that point been hyped up too much ?

We do have a localish Soil and Compost farm and their FYM looks much the same as Westlands when we got a few bags, but to cost of petrol to get there means buying the more pricier Westlands in town works out the same price.

 

Mix up some of your fym with some of the soil, enough for 3 pots(4")Also fill 3 pots with just soil. Plant a couple of broad bean seeds in each. In about 4 weeks you should be able to detect any distortion in the foliage, indicative of aminopyralid contamination # It should only affect the mixed pots, the plain soil ones act as 'control'. You then hopefully have a dozen broad beans to plant out once hardened off !
If this# is not evident, then proceed to fill your greenhouse beds, I would think 3kgs/sq metre mixed with topsoil. Surface with just topsoil to diminish any rural aroma!
# (quickcrop image)

 

With something like this, we always here of people who have had issues with residue from weed killers but those that don't will considerably greater. It's not just found in farmyard manure but also at green recycling centres where grass has been treated with weed killers but they don't dispose the clippings properly.

Clover do a farmyard manure product but it does say it is a blended farmyard manure. Manure does not tend to come in neat, there will be shavings, straw, shredded cardboard/paper and even peat, then they might add bark like I do to speed up the decomposition but also bulks up the final product.

How much to use can be debatable, if your growing outside and your prepping the area or beds well in advance, mid/late autumn, then you could add more manure than someone who is prepping the beds in Feb/March.

In general, my recommendation would be, 25% manure to 75% soil, or a third of each, manure, soil and compost, that is based on bagged manure from the manufacture's.

 

Thanks everyone for all the advice. I will be using Levington Organic Blend Farmyard Manure 50L bags. The largest raised bed in my greenhouse is around 0.3 cubic metres so I'll be adding a 50 litre bag to each bed as a start and see how it goes from there. I may be being a little naive but I'll trust that manure branded as organic is produced from organic farms and so chemicals not used!

 

Think you got a bit more than your bargained for there ! though worthwhile knowing of the potential problem of the weedkillers.

If we were in your shoes, would manure one bed and not the other, just using normal fetilizers on it and seeing how the two compared in growth and produce over the summer.