Hi all as you know I'm new to this gardening lark, could someone suggest or advise me on a good general fertiliser. Cheers Coopes
For the allotment Coopes, if you don't have any good rotted manure or home made compost yet, then pelleted chicken manure is a good all round feed. You can get it in B&Q and the likes, it isn't terribly expensive and as it is pelleted, it is easy and clean to use. I have 2 compost heaps on the plots, one being filled, one being emptied. I also have access to stable manure which I pile high on the heaps, and I use at the bottom of my runner bean trench, I also plant my various squash plants on little hillocks of fresh, warm manure and they love it! For the first time in the 10+ years of running allotments, last autumn I sowed a green manure, Mustard, on the advice of Sjoerd, our Dutch allotment guru, and I have just finished digging it in. If you check out seed companies like Thompson and Morgan, you can buy large bags of green manure to use at different times and different seeds depending on your soil. I am on heavy London clay so need to get in as much organic matter as possibly to break up the orange smelly clay, so I also make my own leaf mould by gathering up all the leaves I can in the autumn and piling them up in a wire mesh cage. It takes about 18 monthes to break down, I don't mind it being a bit chunky still, and although the nutrient value isn't high, it is a great soil conditioner, and to be honest, every little helps.
I like to use all-purpose, slow-release fertilizers in my flower beds (I look for 20-20-20, and there are many brands available). There are also slow-release fertilizers for vegetables too which work great. I use low-salt water soluble fertilizers in my hanging baskets and containers. I topdress and amend my beds every year with organic materials like peat/compost/manure before mulching. I can't wait for the snow to melt here so I can play in the dirt!
Thanks for the info. I have spread some well rotted manure on the allotment for when I have it rotovated. EJ I have bought some chicken pooh two buckets £10. I have started a compost heap at the back of my greenhouse so hopefully I will be able to use that next year. I don't have my hopes up for much happening this year as it is my first. We have decided to try some strawberries would you suggest we grow them in a framed bed so they don't spread, I here they can take over if not. we also have some raspberry canes, so they will be going in as well, we're planning to keep the fruit ares together, will that be better? Cheers Coopes
The prep you have already is great and next year you will have plenty of your home made compost to spread about the plot. Regarding strawbs. Mine are on a moveable rotation. The original parent plants only produce well for a few years, so every year I peg runners down from the most productive plants (if I remember that is) and these provide replacement plants so I can eventually dig up and bin the older, less productive plants. This also means that every year the strawb bed moves up the allotment onto fresh ground which I improve with compost and which shouldn't harbour any pests or diseases. This is how I run my strawbs. I don't think they would ever take over an allotment, not unless you left it to it's own devices for several years. Raspberries however, can be a touch thuggish and do run. They have shallow roots and are really edge of woodland plants so like cooler, dappled shade. I have my fruit cage in the dappled shade of my apple trees and we get a bumper harvest. Raspberry roots run and canes can pop up all over. This doesn't worry me, I either oik them out and chuck them on the chunky compost pile, or I replant them in pots to give away, or replant back in the fruit cage if a gap appears. I do have the majority of my fruit in the cage - black currants, red currants, jostaberries, gooseberrys - red and green, and the raspberries. Strawbs I net later in the year as the fruit starts to colour. I also have a young mixed fruit hedge along the end of on of my plots where I stick the prunings in the ground and they have mostly rooted. I don't net these, the birds and me share this feast. Hope my ramblings make sense coopes.
EJ, if you mix in some green grass clippings and a handful of fertilizer with your leaves they will break down a lot quicker.
Wow. That is a lot of info. Coopes thank you for asking that question!! I got all excited reading the replies and agree there is sooo much to learn from everyone on this site. All are so generous with their knowledge. I'm going to print out those replies so I can digest it all. I don't know what is green manure... My poor beds, I now realize have been sorely neglected over the years. They're not going to know what hit them this summer. Coopes -- good luck to you on your plot. It sounds exciting!!!!!! EJ - not to change subject here but I hope your mom is progressing nicely and feeling more comfortable.
I may become well known for asking the obvious.... but... what is the right amount of compost and manure to put on beds that already have things growing in them, as well as new empty beds (for veggies). Can you put too much compost and/or manure in?
Daisybeans, thanks for asking - mum is staying with me now so I can look after her for a bit, and she is getting a little better every day. As for compost and manure, you shouldn't really put fresh manure on your beds with plants already growing on them as it can be hot and incredibly rich and will burn young plants. Once rotted down, I don't really think you can ever really over do it. I dig in lots of well rotted compost and manure into beds where things like potatoes, beans, tomatoes, squashes and so on like to grow. I don't add any to beds that are going to grow root crops though as the richness can cause carrots and parsnips to fork. Where plants are already growing, like potatoes for example, I just heap compost up around the growing plants. By now, I don't have much compost left as I have dug is over the beds, or mulched it around my fruit bushes, so now I am gathering all the green matter I can lay my hands on to make plenty of compost for this autumn and next spring. Thanks for that Cajunbelle - when I start cutting the grass from the paths on the allotment I will add some to the leaf cage to give it a boost.
