Adding farmyard menu

I have 30m2 of raised beds (500mm high) .. I had meant to add rotted farmyard manure before Xmas, but things got in the way.

Is it too late to add now ..? .. nothing planted in them yet. (spuds are chitting ready, and onion sets are also ready to go)

I had read that you can spread a layer all over and then use a Mantis to mix it all in ... what is the considered opinion on this ?

Alternative is I leave it to end of year.

 

have you already bought the manure?

 

No .. I have a local farmer who lets me have as much as I want whenever I want it for free.

He has a dung heap (beef & sheep farmer) about 5m high and 50m long .. he digs the oldest stuff out with a tractor for me, black & crumbly .... not green & steaming

 

Its alright for spuds. Might not be a good idea for other stuff though.

 

I found this as regards potatoes:

snip

Fertiliser Programme

Adding manure the previous autumn at a rate of a barrow load of 20Kg per square metre will provide the starting point for the calculation. The manure is around 0.7% nitrogen so you have added 140g of nitrogen. However, nitrogen washes out of the soil and only around 10% of the amount you added is going to be available to the crop. So we've actually added 14g /M2 of nitrogen to get the crop going.

As well as nitrogen to form the haulm (foliage) potatoes need a high level of potash for the tubers. A good source of this is to lay wilted comfrey leaves in the base of the trench, covered with a little soil under the seed potatoes.

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so, perhaps skip the manure this time around, and rather get some decent compost such as John Innes #3 and incorporating that into the soil, with a bit of blood meal (not fish/blood and bone) .... which probably will give a higher nitrogen content?

the area is not too large and a few bags will do (most garden centres sell this for approx £12 for 3 large bags)

for the potash, you can buy Chempak High Potash Feed for cheap

and do the same with onions ... find out what they thrive on, and fertilze accordingly

I'm just guessing here as i dont grow veg?

 

None of the many crops of spuds I've grown over the years were able to read, so they didn't know that fresh manure is bad for them and they went ahead and produced excellent crops regardless.

 

interesting .... I'll add that to my list for future research if ever I do grow potatoes

but what was also interesting is the fact that it was specifically stated that the manure should be incorporated into the soil a few months before planting ....

or do you add manure at the time of planting?

if so, then you have answered the OP's question

 

The quality of my crops has always been directly proportional to the amount of manure I can lay my hands on before planting. The best crop I've ever seen wasn't technically mine, but was my dad's. We kept horses at the time and had a large manure stack that was still steaming. After deciding to rearrange the plot, the heap had to go. It was dug into the ground still steaming. Spuds were planted in it (the manure was literally still steaming in parts when we planted) and we expected very little back. The spuds were ready to go in, the manure heap had to go, and that year's planting was a marriage of convenience more than anything. It gave an amazing crop. I'm not exaggerating when I say that despite giving away/selling many spuds, we were still overwhelmed with them.

The worst potato crops I've ever had were grown without manure. One here in my back garden the first year I was here, before I enriched the soil with mushroom poo. Another on my land which is good fertile soil. In the case of the latter I did get a crop, but it wasn't impressive.

 

so that answers the OP's question as regards potatoes

now what about the onions?

 

I dig a trench, line it with 2" - 4" well rotted manure, plant the spuds in the manure, back fill the trench (and then earth up when the grow), and I get great crops

The ones I grow in bags are 4" manure, 4" multi purpose compost, into which the seed potatoes are pushed, so they are more or less into the manure, then another 4" multi purpose, then earthed up (i.e;. bags filled up as they grow) with whatever I have to hand (usually multi purpose from other things that have finished / seedlings that have failed etc.)

 

The spud crops over last 2 years grown in beds have been very successful .... amazingly so ... first year they were planted in soil where manure had been put in at about 100kg per sq m. Second year no manure added.

Hence thinking of adding some this year .. although rotation means no spuds been in this area before.
If I add some now .... again about 100kg per sq m (3 ton load), I could spread it over surface and mix it all in with Mantis Tiller. (which I read is one approach)

Will also follow advice of putting some in trench under seeds potatoes.


The only disappointing crops have been salad spuds ... grown in the Marshall's 'sacks' ... filled with just multi-purpose compost .... grew but small crop.

I could try adding a layer of manure in the sacks this year.

 

Grow Sacks don't make a big crop in my experience. I only do it to get Early spuds. Keeping the compost moist, once the plants are fully grown, is a challenge ...

 

added a full 4" layer all over ... well in rotted manure, like black crumb compost.

Will mix it all in during week with Mantis, which will also chop it up as well.