Cheap ways to fertilise

[Millymollymandy]

I'll send you some, MMM. Be careful what you wish for

Be funny if you're my secret santa - or maybe not funny but very scary!

[Peggy Sue]

If you try to make compost with just your leftovers it's really hard for it to be enough - unless you soil is amazing to start with.
For the allotment I have 2 half size patches, both patches I have 2 compost bins made from 4 pallets. Each year I empty one, & refil, (the other is waiting a year). Lucklily my horse lives next to the allotments so he recycles alot of green waste and I barrow over about 20 barrows of poo to mix with the other stuff (the stuff he doesn't like!) to make my new compost.
I find one pallet bin is jsut about enough per half plot, and I add some fresh muck on my squash patch extra to that.
If you ahd to buy that quantity it would be alot...other allotmenteers use the pelleted stuff which they say is economical, apparently chicken manure goes a long way if you fancy collecting the stuff

[Flo]

I know this may sound silly but does fertilising the soil have to be an expensive business? i used a years worth of compost on my smallest bed yesterday!

Compost doesn't fertilise as other people have said - it improves the structure of the soil. Also it replaces the soil that seems to disappear over the season when you grow crops. I'm on very high standard clay that would make bricks in the wet season so all the compost I can make disappears into the plot on a rotational basis. Also spent compost from the tubs that I use to make the areas under the hedges productive and on the hard standing which is wasted space for the time that the family parks a car on it unless it can be half used for crops. This means that I buy in compost for the tubs but there again - I wouldn't have so much growing space else and would lose out as I've got fruit trees in one area.

what do other people do? how much compost do u generate in a year? not really feeling the idea of buying in compost cos kinda defeats the purpose .....

The simple answer is that over the three years I've had the allotment nowhere near enough - the first year probably not as much as you. My allotment soil had dropped by a couple of inches below the paths on one side of the central concrete hard standing when I moved on so I had to bite the bullet and ship in enough to raise the soil again. Expensive - well yes. Defeats the purpose yes. But if previous tenants of said allotment have not gone down the composting route then something has to give. But the action paid for itself this year in that there was enough soil for the crops with chicken pellets added generously. The other side had not been cropped for years and needed everything that could be found to make it grow anything at all as it had never been properly used by anyone with any gardening knowledge.

and although we do get some farmyard manure delivered to the lottie at this time of year its a bit of an unreliable source! (i.e. not here yet, when i need it!)

I've been a lot concerned about using manure over the last couple of season due to the fact that some of it has been contaminated and has been doing no good for crops on some people's allotments. Not using it makes life a lot more expensive as manure both adds fertility and improves the structure of the soil. I recommend chicken pellets if you can get them cheap enough (prices have risen all round but the gardeners association prices if you have one for your allotments is better than at the garden centre). As others say - manure, comfrey, nettles and seaweed are all good if you can mange them properly and get them free. If you know any pigeon keepers and can get some of their pigeon poo when clearing out their lofts, this is good stuff rotted down for where you are going to grow the brassica family.

does anyone use green manures much? i've got loads of seed but worried its too late now (should have done it earlier i know but i forgot!)

I used green manure on one half of the allotment for the first season that I was on the allotment as it was a seed bed of annual weeds that I could not beat in time to grow anything. So it was a purely weed control situation. And it was flaming hard work digging it all in before flowering. Green manuring is not for the faint hearted let me tell you. It can be an expensive way of doing things and you need to get the right green manure to fit in with your crop rotation. Oh and green manures should not be closely related to the crop that you plan to put in that area next as this will create the possibility of diseases building up. Not to put in one that adds lots of nitrogen either if you are going to use the space for brassicas next.

[Flo]

Phew - along winded post of saying yes fertilising soil can be expensive till you get the soil into good shape at which point - far less so.

[Peggy Sue]

Forgot to add my 2p worth on green manure-
I experimented when the contaminated manure scare came along, but it's really no substitute for the real thing.
I still use mustard after spuds as it's supposed to break the eel work cycle and we have eel worm and it is working as we haven't had damage this year at all.
I use it in rotation, ie straight after spuds I add compost then green manure, any potential contamination is eaten up by the mustard, dig it in before flowering so it's not too hard work, add a bit of lime, then follow with the winter brassicas and keep it brassicas then for the 12 months so it is part of the cycle, it then has 5 years rest from brassicas.
It seems to be effective, we've had HUGE white sprouting and purple sprouting and lovely tight little sprouts.