So what will you all be using?

[dave_norm_smith]

Hi

I was just wondering having read most of the manure threads, what will you be using as an alternative? With what seems little guarantee of Aminopyralid not being in manure, even from those who offer guarantees, what will you opt to use?

regards

Dave.

p.s. It's really frustrating as I have access to Horse, cow and pig manure but don't what to destroy all my hard work!

[Flummery]

I'll be using my chicken manure. My next door neighbour, who has always used manure from the stables behind the paddock at the end of our gardens, has had his tomatoes affected this year. He offered me some earlier in the season, and filled a barrow for me. I took it down and put it on a bit of the plot where I knew it wouldn't do any harm - no sensitive crops there - but didn't take him up on the offer of more. I'm really glad I didn't!

[Nicos]

I think you need to get friendly with a farmer/stables- and discuss what products they've put on their fields to see whether the manure will be OK.
They may not know whether it's safe to use- but if you can get the name of what is used, then you could check up on it.
There must be a lot of farmers who haven't used it...and a lot who have unknowingly used it....so if you can get names of products then at least you know you'll be OK

We get our cow manure from an organic meat producer- so we know there has been nothing sprayed anywher- but I have a feeling it never got a licence for use over here??????

[zazen999]

I'm going back to home made compost, comfrey, coffee grounds, sawdust, and anything else that I can get my hands on to get organic matter into the soil; we are on clay so that's my issue, not so much the nutrients but the organic matter.

If you have access to it; then you could put a space aside and make sure you test it first before spreading it....

[taff]

get in touch with an organic farmer and ask them for their manure.

[Snadger]

A mixture of home made compost and chicken manure for me.

Just as an aside, I grew greenhouse tomatoes in bedsoil two seasons ago which had lashings of infected aminowhatyamacallit manure added. Last year I grew in pots and housed my chooks in greenhouse all winter. Back to bedsoil tomato growing this season and everthing seems hunky dory...........which just goes to prove..........there is life after aminowhatchamacallit!

[Two_Sheds]

home made compost, comfrey, coffee grounds, sawdust, and anything else

ditto that, plus guinea pig & parrot beddings and green manures. I've never used farmyard manure in oh, 14 years of growing

[frogdoctor]

I`ve been getting my manure from the same place for a few years now, it`s good stuff..but I do not over use it..I think that you can over manure your plot or garden, I love to make my own composts out of leaves, grass cuttings, tea bags/spent coffee, sea-weed, second-hand grow bags, people actually throw these things away, so I collect them!! small chopped up twigs, torn up newspaper, the list is endless for me, if it rots down then I compost it..I just mix it up and let the bugs and worms do the rest.

So test your manure first if you are unsure what`s in it. stick a plant in it, if it curls up then you have a problem..so bin it.

[glallotments]

get in touch with an organic farmer and ask them for their manure.

I'm afraid contamianted manure has been sourced from organic suppliers!

[solway cropper]

There's no excuse not to produce your own organic matter. Compost, leaf-mould, nettle tea and green manures are so easy.

The first two years we were here I used horse manure to kick start a virgin plot but I'm self-sufficient in compost now and find that, along with seaweed liquid feed is all that's required to produce fantastic fruit and veg. Oh, and of course the old favourite BFB.

[SarzWix]

After spending some time talking to a beef farmer about this, we concluded that the main source of contamination is likely to be the straw used as bedding, rather than what the animal has ingested. Apparently the fields for cereal crops that the straw comes from are much more likely to have been sprayed than the pastures that the animals graze on.
So, if you can find somebody who uses wood shavings as litter rather than straw, you're much more likely to have a safe source, although it takes longer to break down.

Otherwise; compost everything possible, grow a decent comfrey patch, mulch with cardboard and newspaper, add all spent compost from pots and growbags and look at annual weeds as a source of green matter and don't hoe them off too small - as long as they're not seeding everywhere of course.

[taff]

I'm afraid contamianted manure has been sourced from organic suppliers!

true...I'm not talking about organic suppliers as such, in the sense that they sell or add their manure to a a central point, but rather individuals. If you can find someone who you can get to know, ask them stuff etc, you're likely to not have problems. It does help if you have something to barter

[womble]

There's no excuse not to produce your own organic matter. Compost, leaf-mould, nettle tea and green manures are so easy.

Otherwise; compost everything possible, grow a decent comfrey patch, mulch with cardboard and newspaper, add all spent compost from pots and growbags and look at annual weeds as a source of green matter and don't hoe them off too small - as long as they're not seeding everywhere of course.

Garden compost, comfrey, cardboard, nettle tea (doesn't help humus anyway), green manure, annual weeds, are a poor poor source of humus, well, apart from garden compost, which is great, but not available in the quantities we need unless you fill it with oodles of manure

It's just not enough, veg growing needs vast amounts of manure to get started and enough after that to keep going.

The one thing I've left out is leaf mould, if you can get it in large enough quantities, then it's pretty good, not as good as manure, but ok.
I'm really lucky, I get my DD's school to save me all their leaves (got in at the ground floor as it was) and I got 70 bin liners last year, normally it's more like 30 tbh, but even that's not enough, I save another 20 from various places, but even that's not enough.
I generally bring another new bed online each year, as the striving for extra space never seems to end. To get my clay soil into a workable structure, I need huge amounts of humus, manure is the only thing that I could use.

I had a source, which was good, but a friend gave me a huge trailer load of manure last year and promised me it contained nothing bad, she has her own horses (grows her own too) and buys her hay and feed from a friend who is totally organic. I must admit, it was a bit worried, but it's been great.

Growing needs animal manure, it's the way nature was set up to work. I still think it's absolutely outrageous the way this has been handled, take something that damaged footballs for instance and it would have been dealt with, but food grown by a large part of the (generally quiet, which is half the problem) population and it's brushed under the carpet and even allowed to continue...

[SarzWix]

I disagree. I don't think you need 'vast quantities' of manure. To get clay to be workable, sand and horticultural grit are almost as useful as manure. Clay is high in nutrients naturally, and holds moisture well generally. It's drainage that tends to be the immediate problem (although, not this summer obviously!) so sand and grit help to 'break up' the clay and aid drainage. To add hummus, cardboard and shredded paper are really useful, and cardboard as a mulch helps to retain moisture too.
Liquid fertilisers like comfrey & nettle tea help to support the plants while they're growing and also boost natural soil bacteria, and slow release stuff like BF&B gives long term nutrients. A decent green manure will help to keep the hummus content up. Actual animal manures are good, but definitely not the ONLY way to go.

[Snadger]

After spending some time talking to a beef farmer about this, we concluded that the main source of contamination is likely to be the straw used as bedding, rather than what the animal has ingested. Apparently the fields for cereal crops that the straw comes from are much more likely to have been sprayed than the pastures that the animals graze on.
So, if you can find somebody who uses wood shavings as litter rather than straw, you're much more likely to have a safe source, although it takes longer to break down.

Otherwise; compost everything possible, grow a decent comfrey patch, mulch with cardboard and newspaper, add all spent compost from pots and growbags and look at annual weeds as a source of green matter and don't hoe them off too small - as long as they're not seeding everywhere of course.

The straw is a bi-product of wheat or barley production. Are you and your farmer friend saying that wheat or barley fields are sprayed with aminopyralid to kill off broad leaved weeds? If so this would mean anyone eating barley/wheat based products including bread or pasta would be excreting aminopyralid also!

PS Does this also mean that those of us who keep chickens have to be very careful where we source our straw bales, used for nestboxes?