Growing in hoss muck

[Snadger]

This season I planted my spuds by shovelling out a hole, dropping a tattie in and covering with hoss muck that we get delivered for free to the site.
I have had a tremendous crop of clean spuds. The hoss muck is mainly sawdust and the tatties seem to thrive in it. the acidity (probably caused by hoss urine and sawdust?) means there is no scab problems.
Last season I had seed tatties left so stuck them in the muck heap. Once again, a tremendous clean crop.

Next season I am going to try and grow some tatties in a raised bed of pure hoss muck without soil!

[KevinM67]

What about just shoving a few seed potatoes down your lavvy and letting us know how you get on.

[Snadger]

Nowt the matter with humanure!

[Mr Bones]

I'm intrigued, how well rotted is the muck Snadge.

[Snadger]

I'm intrigued, how well rotted is the muck Snadge.

I think it was reasonably fresh, but not smelly. Mainly sawdust if the truth be known.

[Penellype]

Horse muck is great - I make a hotbed each year from muck literally straight out of the stable, covered with a couple of inches of old growbag compost. The muck I use is based on wood shavings, which are not supposed to be great as they rot down slowly, but I find they work fine. I've grown early salad crops, french beans and courgettes in the hotbed, and then used the rotted contents the following year for onions (huge), potatoes (some huge) courgettes (huge) and tomatoes (rampant).

I agree the potatoes come out nice and clean. My main problem (probably unconnected with the horse muck) was that they were eaten by rats while still in the ground. Slugs and snails can also be a problem.

Contrary to what a lot of people think, the "goodness" in the horse manure doesn't come from the poo, although this supplies bacteria which help it rot down. The nitrogen comes from the urine soaked bedding, which often just looks like clean bedding if it has been allowed to dry out. I therefore use as much of the "wet" out of the stable as possible when making my hotbed.

[Nubber]

is horse muck acidic then ?,

[Snadger]

is horse muck acidic then ?,

Hoss urine contains uric acid methinks.........so probably. Also the bedding used in our muck supplier is sawdust which again is acidic.
Another reason I think its acidic is that tatties grown in it have no signs of potato scab!

[Nubber]

Hoss urine contains uric acid methinks.........so probably. Also the bedding used in our muck supplier is sawdust which again is acidic.
Another reason I think its acidic is that tatties grown in it have no signs of potato scab!

Ahh thanks, never really knew that,is other wood material acidic, such as bark for mulch ?