Re: horse manure?
Posted: Sun Jul 25, 2010 12:38 pm
Just to expand on what Peggysue said, you should never manure and lime at the same time (it causes a bad chemical reaction), now potatoes prefer acid soil and legumes alkaline. So if you lime the ground for your legumes, it should be the year after the potatoes were in that ground, then it will be a full rotation ( 3, 4 years depending on your rotation) before the potatoes go back in the limed soil. Also if you manured the potatoes, if the brassicas go in after the legumes, being hungry feeders, they get the benefit of the nitrogen fixing of the legumes and the manure. You can then follow with onions or root crops.
My way of remembering this is LaBORS, Legumes, brassicas, onions, roots, solanacious (potatoes,tomatoes).
There are many different rotations and I vary it in different parts of the allotment depending on the quantities of crops I want to grow, but the principle is don't manure and lime at the same time, lime after the potatoes and legumes like lime, brassicas are hungry feeders and also like lime, then the root crops and onions don't like too well a manured soil, then come the solanacious and curcubits which like a well manured soil, bringing you round the full circle.
My way of remembering this is LaBORS, Legumes, brassicas, onions, roots, solanacious (potatoes,tomatoes).
There are many different rotations and I vary it in different parts of the allotment depending on the quantities of crops I want to grow, but the principle is don't manure and lime at the same time, lime after the potatoes and legumes like lime, brassicas are hungry feeders and also like lime, then the root crops and onions don't like too well a manured soil, then come the solanacious and curcubits which like a well manured soil, bringing you round the full circle.