On 23 Mar 2012 11:55:13 GMT, "CT" wrote:

wrote:

My wife dug in some fresh horse manure into a bed last September or
so, would it be OK to put some onions in the bed now?

In general is this a sensible thing to do or should it always be
rotted down? We have horses on our land adjacent to the vegetable
plot so it's always somewhat tempting to 'go direct'! :-)

What's the best thing for those of us that are a little less prepared
and would like to grow some veg (potatoes, beans, some other root veg)
in an area that's been left a bit unattended?

I was thinking of digging it oever with a bag or two of manure from the
garden centre but now, having read this thread, I'm not so sure this is
the best thing! Is multi-purpose compost OK, or is there something
better?

Bags of manure sold at garden centres are, IME, always well rotted
down (and usually labelled "composted ..."). In the past I've used
that without any problems save that some root crops like carrots don't
seem to like overly fertile soil and develop forked roots.

At one time I used to use a product called "6X" that was essentially
well rotted and supposedly sterilised manure. Was a fibrous sort of
stuff that you could just dig your hands into and chuck about by the
handful. Looked for some last year and the price was beyond
astronomical compared to what I used to pay. However it was really
good stuff though it stank to high heaven and the neighbours always
complained a bit.

Cheers, Jake
=======================================
Urgling happily from the dryer end of Swansea Bay.