(Rodger Whitlock) wrote in
:

Subject: Manure and Fertiliser
From: (Rodger Whitlock)
Newsgroups: uk.rec.gardening
Reply-To: (Rodger Whitlock)

On Tue, 4 Feb 2003 01:49:50 -0000, "Bart"
wrote:

I dug in loads of horse manure last spring, to condition and
fertilise a new shrub/flower border.

I didn't use any other fertiliser because I thought the manure would
do the job. I've just read, though, that manure is not actually a
fertiliser, it is only a soil conditioner. Is that correct? I
always though manure was a fertiliser.

If manure *is* a fertiliser, then can I use a fertiliser as normal
this year?

Manure usually contains nitrogen, and may contain other
nutrients, so it can act as a fertilizer, but perhaps not a very
concentrated one. One trouble is that you can't be sure just how
much of what you've applied. The real benefit of manure is more
likely to lie in the stimulus it gives to the various critters
that live in soil. A healthy soil is a living soil full of
bacteria, fungi, and small creepy-crawlies of many sorts.

I dunno if the manure I have used was extra-strong, or if I put on too
much, or what, but on one memorable occasion I dug over a bed, manured,
since it seemed to be solid clay, then planted runner beans and, as I
was very strapped for space, put some annual seeds round the bottom.
The beans shot up so far and fast that the slugs ignored them, and then
climbed all the way along my hedge and fence. I was sick of beans that
year!

The annuals fought a dirty and bloody war for space: the lobelia won,
as I recall, and tromped all the other seedlings into slimy goo for lack
of light. Things went back to (relative) normal next year.

I think the type of soil you are on makes a big difference. My Cheshire
clay responded eagerly to manuring, and seemed to hold the nutrients
well for a couple of years. Down here in arsenic-rich gravelly Cornwall,
I seem to be endlessly feeding and mulching, and the stuff just washes
away. (it is *so* much easier to dig and weed though.)

Victoria Clare