Raised bed.

Hi All,

I cleared one of my raised beds at the weekend. I grew broad beans in it last autumn/winter, but never used it after. Whilst turning it over I noticed it was as dry as a bone, although it lashed with rain virtually all the previous day and I only saw 1 worm in it. I have put some general fertiliser and dug a load of leaf mould in it and was planning on putting some onions in over winter. Do you think that they will be ok in there? This will be my root bed next year, so I do not want to put any manure in it. My other empty bed at the moment I will put some broad beans in. Now I have the chickens do you think that throwing the contents of the bucket after I do the daily poo picking on this bed will be ok or should I bag it over the winter and dig it in next spring?I will use this for my brassicas next year.

Rusty

 

Hi rusty - best you don't use the chook poop in it's fresh state. Bag it, tag it and mark it with next years date after it has had time to heat up and rot down

 

You could buy chicken manure pellets and use those instead, they're fairly cheap to buy from B&Q and Wilko's.

 

If you use straw in their run for them to scratch around in and compost that together with the rolled up newpapers/dropping from poo trays you will have the perfect composted combination to use in 12 months.