Is Growmore better than Chicken Manure pellets?

[Phill]

Which fertiliser do you think is the best for general use, principally used when planting spuds? I use chicken manure pellets because it's a fair bit cheaper than growmore but is it a false economy?

[Spiderling]

Hi Phill. We use both cos they each have their merits. Growmore has all the required nutrients and Chicken pellets are good soil conditioners...have you seen the way the swell??? Our soil tends to be clay based so we used the chicken pellets for the spuds and I use growmore on most things. Check out garden centres for bargains...we found buckets of growmore were more expensive than 25 kilo bags!! Ditto for chicken pellets. It certainly pays to look around. Cheers.

[Snadger]

Chicken pellets COULD be organic but growmore deffo isn't!

Growmore is also a balllanced fert 7-7-7 equal quantitiies of NPK whereas I think chicken pellets are more nitrogen based so are probably better for leafy plants like brassicas etc?

[tattieman]

Growmore is not what I would use for potatoes as the NPK ratio is not in balance for potatoes. The ratio should be 1-1-1.5 of NPK so you really want a product that is 7-7-11 or there abouts. Nitrogen will cause the foliage to grow and potash grows potatoes. Too much nitrogen and you gets lots of foliage and little spuds. Hope that helps.

[Alice]

Depends what you want it for Phil. Growmore is a chemical fertilizer and chicken pellets are organic.If you're not bothered either way I think you pay your money and take your chance.

[lynda66]

Depends what you want it for Phil. Growmore is a chemical fertilizer and chicken pellets are organic.If you're not bothered either way I think you pay your money and take your chance.

chicken pellets are not necessarily organic unless the chickens they come from are organic .... they will often come as a by product of battery chicken farming

[Eyren]

Growmore is not what I would use for potatoes as the NPK ratio is not in balance for potatoes. The ratio should be 1-1-1.5 of NPK so you really want a product that is 7-7-11 or there abouts. Nitrogen will cause the foliage to grow and potash grows potatoes. Too much nitrogen and you gets lots of foliage and little spuds. Hope that helps.

To follow on from tattieman's expert advice, chicken manure is also low in potash - around 11-8-5 according to one site I looked at (Burhill Allotments Cotgrave Shop). So it's even less suitable than Growmore

I wouldn't call planting spuds "general use" - I use general-purpose fertilizer to give a mild boost to non-greedy crops on soil that I'm not going to be manuring, eg. carrot/onion beds, legumes, herbs.