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horse manure

Hi all 

We have just joined Gardeners world and was wondering if anyone could help us please, we have built 5 big raised beds in our garden for veg growing and was wondering how to fill them.The previous owners of the house had horses and we found a MASSIVE pile of horse manure under a load of weeds that must have been there for a good few years its nearly black and very crumbly, can we fill the beds up with just this? any advice gratefully received. Thank you

Posts

  • Hostafan1Hostafan1 Posts: 34,889

    A word of caution. It might contain a lot of weed seed. 

    Devon.
  • ObelixxObelixx Posts: 30,090

    It'll make a great base for your beds.  Just be prepared to hoe between rows of plants as Hosta is right about weed seeds.  leave a gap wide enough to hoe easily between rows and you'll be fine.

    If there isn't enough to fill all your beds use it to start them off and then top up with some bought in topsoil or planting compost or keep one bed free of manure and just use compost  and then grow roots such as carrots and parsnips in that bed this year as they tend to fork if there's too much manure in their soil.

    Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
    "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
    Plato
  • jpr1jpr1 Posts: 2

    Thanks a lot  for advice ,will use as much as I can ,seems a waste not to ! 

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