Compost, etc, for raised beds

Davesnave

OTOH Dafty, a lot of horsey people in poorer areas have the most appalling pasture which is wonderfully organic + full of thistles & docks.:rotfl:

I see this all around me. Managing pasture organically and well takes time and effort. The old lady next to me does it, but she's the exception rather than the rule.

So, if the horse fields are rather weed-infested, the poo's probably OK from that angle.

Money, you should stop re-inventing the wheel and join a gardening club where you are and speak to people with NGS gardens and similar. People who've lived and gardened in the area for years, know where to buy things and how to deal with local conditions, although some of yours are hardly localised.

Clay soil affects large areas of the UK, including most of the Greater London area, for example, and as for couch grass, well, there wouldn't be a local word for it where I live if it wasn't endemic! Half of the sward in our fields is composed of the stuff.

moneyistooshorttomention

I've come across a gardening club here Dave - but it's some distance from me and all round relies on people having cars to belong to it (like a lot of other "social" things then...:().

So that's me not able to join that one then....

I'm so pleased to hear how widespread couch grass is:rotfl: - having been barely aware of it before getting my garden = I promptly started googling to see if its widespread in the West Country too and was rather relieved to see it is iyswim...:cool:

So I guess your view boils down to = it's okay to accept it?

DaftyDuck

It will be fine, especially if well rotted.

[Deleted User]

I doubt horse manure is organic, pure organic depends on how far back you can trace the feed that goes into the horse and I don`t think there are farmers who make organic hay for horses. They are also fed cubes etc which would be non organic. We also had to worm our horses several times a year

My home grown veggies are as organic as I can make them without becoming precious about it. They are grown in raised beds and I don`t need to use any weedkiller inside the beds. I have couch grass, bindweed etc but they are easy to dig out of my compost (and peat) enriched beds as the soil has become so friable by worm activity. Around the beds is a different matter and I have spent a week using an azada and then a hoe and the sun has dried most of the weeds up but some couch grass was reviving so I simply spot weeded them with glyphosate. I have also stocked up on glyphosate products in case of any euro directive. I am future proofing wrt my age and ability to wield a hoe in future

I never use horse muck because of the weed seeds that pass through the gut. All my organic fertiliser comes from my comfrey patch and a hotbin, which is very quick at producing hm weed -seed free compost. I do add some chemical fertiliser, like phosphate and nitro chalk and I will spray with a foliar feed if needed. My veg are wonderful btw and I always get lovely comments from passers by

just saw the cross post. I used to rot manure from my horses for 3 years and still got a lot of weeds from it. Also look into what they were bedded on, nowadays many owners use wood pellets, made from all sorts of recycled wood

Davesnave

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

So I guess your view boils down to = it's okay to accept it?

Err.....possibly, especially if the land is a bit unkempt, but it's more complicated than whether selective weedkiller's been used...... see kittie's post above.

From a purely practical POV, horse poo contaminated by small amounts of weedkiller, if not sufficiently rotted, can lead to failure with sensitive crops, notably tomatoes and their relatives. Allotment societies discovered this when bulk buys of manure were identified as the source.

From a further practical POV, the selective weedkillers I use, (they don't injure grass) allow me to spot-weed fields. Not only cheaper, but much more wildlife-friendly than blanket spraying with a vehicle. As a result, I have violets blooming now and many other wild flowers which aren't in the commercial fields nearby. The only animals that eat my grasses are sheep, and their poo stays where it falls, so it doesn't form any part of my composting/manuring.

[Deleted User]

I just came back because the op was about compost. I`ll start by saying that I never dig, the worms do it all. My 12 beds on the allotment are all 6" tall and the base soil is very heavy clay. I started by hand weeding the whole allotment, day after day, very hard work. Then we placed the beds, plastic so as not to absorb water from the soil ie to dry it and they also don`t harbour snails. I bought in some ready made compost from a local supplier and put a couple of bags on each bed. I also used green manure which I chopped in, covered and overwintered. Bit by bit the beds have filled, using my own compost and green manure

At home I have 3 triangular beds, all 3` tall and each contains a very good apple tree and flowers. These were a different kettle of fish. I started with a hole that needed filling. I used cardboard and upside down turves of grass, also any left over compost I could get my hands on. I added john innes number 2 for a bit of density and stability. I have rotated veg very successfully in these beds, two sides are roughly 4 x 3 feet. Then decided that I needed to make gardening much easier. Took out some old soil and topped up with a couple of JI no 3 in each bed, as obviously the cardboard will have compacted and hopefully rotted. The apple trees are now 2 years old and so healthy with good thickening stems, bramleys, christmas pippin and bountiful, all on M26 rootstocks.

This is the stuff that has been contaminating manure and made some allotments unusable for quite a long time
https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=477

moneyistooshorttomention

Davesnave wrote: »

From a purely practical POV, horse poo contaminated by small amounts of weedkiller, if not sufficiently rotted, can lead to failure with sensitive crops, notably tomatoes and their relatives. Allotment societies discovered this when bulk buys of manure were identified as the source.

That was what I was trying to think of Dave.

I knew I'd read something somewhere and vaguely registered "Darn it - something else that has to be done differently to normal at the moment because of the late 20th century/early 21st century use of chemicals":mad:

But I'd not recalled the details - you've just reminded me.:T

Have just thought "Darn - because its 2016 then and still Chemical Era - I'd better forget that idea" and told them "thank you very much - but no thanks" after all without going into details querying the provenance of it...

moneyistooshorttomention

Thanks for your thoughts as well Kittie - that gives me more "specifics" on this.

I've been reading about lasagne gardening and it is one concept I'm still thinking about. I shall get my first raised beds in and filled fast - so that I can "get going" properly to some extent. But - I can take things more "leisurely" for subsequent extra raised beds and am certainly contemplating ways to "make my own soil" using cardboard, etc, for that.

I'm finding out what you mean by the "worms doing it all" re the digging. I think they must be helping to a small extent here - as I keep noticing various small bits of stones/broken pottery bits surfacing - after I thought I'd got rid of all I'd seen. Guess the worms are having a hard time of it because I think they are basically pretty recent. When I bought this house the garden was basically "barren wilderness" territory and it was very noticeable that I never saw a single worm when trying to dig the earth. I added some worms - and have now got loads of them in some parts of the garden. Think the "wildlife" is starting to move back in now - spotted another bee yesterday flying from flower to flower on some fruit bushes "doing their thing" and wondering whether I should get a "bee hotel" at the moment.

I am thinking that if I "rest up" any beds in the winter that I will probably put green manure on them (am thinking clover).

My definition of not being 100% "pure" is that I'm still having to resort to buying some plug plants at the moment - and a few of them are from a garden centre (so I don't know if plug plants are non-organic unless they specifically say they are organic iyswim?). I presume that just means = the seed is non-organic. Getting there gradually - and I've thrown or given away a lot of old packets of seeds that didnt say they are organic. Am having to use a few non-organic seeds - because some of the very exotic stuff coming on the market doesnt have an organic version yet.

Only other exception is I spotted the remains of a stump of something dead-looking on nearby land that I identified as either bamboo or Japanese Knotweed - and that scared the life out of me and I poured a load of something very "evil" immediately on top of it to be sure and certain it's dead. I won't use anything non-organic on ordinary weeds though - even horrible stuff like bindweed.

Davesnave

Can you be sure that cardboard isn't also impregnated with chemicals though, from dyes in printing ink and in the material itself?

How far do you go with this organic approach?

[Deleted User]

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

I am thinking that if I "rest up" any beds in the winter that I will probably put green manure on them (am thinking clover).

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I wouldn`t use clover, it could well turn into a weed that you don`t want. Phacelia is very good and has beautiful blue bee-friendly flowers, it dies off in winter if you don`t chop and cover first but the flowers self seed and you could end up with another nuisance. I wait for the flowers, enjoy them for a while and then chop and cover. This is my go- to manure crop. Mustard is super, particularly if followed by potatoes as it deters some of the potato crawlies. Buckwheat also dies in winter. Field beans will add lots of nittrogen. My two favourites are phacelia and mustard as they are easy