Brassicas in manured beds

[bradon]

Hi No-diggers,

I’ve converted a dug allotment (dug by me when I took it on a year ago) to a no-dig plot, by covering all beds in a decent layer of rotted horse manure at the beginning of March. So far the transplanted modules (radish, peas, beetroot, onion, broad beans) are all looking very happy.

I have just planted out about 20 Greyhound cabbage plugs, started indoors and then some time in a cold frame. My plot neighbour saw me and said you shouldn’t plant brassicas in freshly manured beds – and I think I have heard this elsewhere in the past too. The manure seems well-rotted, though definitely clumpy, not like fluffy compost. Obviously it would have been better to mulch the beds in the Autumn, but I wasn’t able to do that. Is there a problem with putting cabbages into recently manured beds, and if so why? Is there anything I can do about this?

Thanks in advance for any advice on this.
B

[Cleansweep]

Beg to suggest it would be the ‘fresh’ rather than the ‘manure’ that may cause issues . Fresh manure would release ammonia which could scorch leafy crops.Once composted (rotted 3 years?) sufficiently it has lost most of its ammonia gas and should be ok. I plant out with a trowel* and have not noticed a problem.
* clay soil is still too tight for the dibber, but is getting better.(4th season)

[Sausage]

The other issue often mentioned with manure and brassicas is acidity. If you’re really worried about that you could lime the bed against clubroot, but personally I haven’t noticed well-rotted manure being acidic. I’ve planted brassicas into it before without any problems and after all, your manure was only a surface mulch. Walking on the beds once the soil dries out a little may help to break up any remaining surface lumps.

[bradon]

Thanks both for your replies. I did wonder about acdity, and thought perhaps of just sprinkling some handfuls of wood ash. I have planted a control group in a small dig bed which is unmanured so we shall see.

[Author]

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