wrote in message ...
When I discovered a source of free horse manure a few years back I
started lavishing the manure on my vegetable plot. The result has to
been to create a beautiful black, friable soil. Lovely to work but ,
last year, almost sterile !
All of my root crops, carrots, parsnips, radish, lettuce, brassicas,
even rasberries, which normally grow as a weed, failed. Seedlings
fail to appear. Plants wither and die. Inspection shows that the
roots systems are almost non-existent . I suspect that something is
eating the roots although I cannot see anything. Can anyone suggest
an explanation and a cure ? Have I overdone the manuring ?

A friend did the same with his allotment, and it wasn't very old manure
either, so he also suffered lessening crops. Last year I suggested a good
dose of lime and that has worked wonders (also seems to have cured his slug
problem?).
The old gardeners were always liming their soil and it appears to be
something modern gardeners forget, but it is important if you keep pushing
in compost/manure.
Check the ph of your soil, I bet it's now quite acid.

--
Bob

www.pooleygreengrowers.org.uk/ about an Allotment site in
Runnymede fighting for it's existence.