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Congrads on the new garden.
Well rotted horse manure is perfect to get you started.
Compost can be made from nearly any living material, coming into the autumn watch out for sources of fallen leaves, hedge trimmings (not woody stuff) these can be mixed with horse manure and composted over winter.If you are not going to use the plot until next year, you could cover with black poly for the summer and cook the weed roots. On the other hand, there is still a lot you could plant this season.
I use volume. At this time of year, I am using straw as my carbon material and its a 2 to 1 mix. In the Autumn when I have fallen leaves, river reeds or shredded hedge clippings I use 1 to 1 mix.
And welcome to the forum.I would like to see the forum continue. I am familiar with WordPress and would be happy to help out with Forum moderation.
“How is the sea weed for decomposing”
The most common types of seaweeds we find here are Kelp and Bladder Wrack, there are numerous others but these two will make up the bulk of the load. I do a variation of the hot composting technique. While the compost is hot the kelp will disintegrate in under two weeks, the bladder wrack will take much longer and you might even find bits when you spread it on your beds, but that’s not a problem .
Hot Composting >> >> .“Wondering how do the worms get into the bags? ”
Worms can travel a great distance above ground (mostly at night) climbing the bag is no object 🙂 .
Where there is an abundance of food creatures will procreate prolifically so you only need a few to get the party started.As there are as many composting methods as there are composter’s I will do a post on mine in a few days .
You wont go far wrong with the Horse manure .
I make a compost pile once a month.
My recipe is one quarter fresh horse manure one quarter seaweed and then what ever else the season provides . All this I mix into a 4 x 4 heap which I turn after four days, at day six I put the lot into 1-Ton bags and leave for six months or more.
Here is a very quick vid, sorry the sound is very low .
As you can see I have a vent pipe for air some hose pipe to keep the covers off the compost and the lot is covered with polythene and carpet, the worms love the dark .
One Ton Bag >> >>Just had an upload error, so here we go again
I did this three yrs ago to prove it was a waste of time. Have photo evidence somewhere. I planted the seed in 55mm plugs, planted them out when still quit small. The result was small round parsnips which had forked at 55mm . Not worth the effort .
The attached photo shows the roots after growing in the garden for three months with the tray I started them off in .Hi Dominic, has this material been composted ? .
I am also on the West coast (Clare), if you give a link or some info on the source I will look into it for you.Unlikely its caterpillars probably cutworm .
Hi Pavol, first off the fungus growing on the surface is probably not causing the damping off , D/O is caused by pathogens in the soil. For the blocker mix, my compost is about a year old (hot composted) and the peat is new. I use plastic trays which are washed before use but not sterilized. I germinate my seeds in a cloche in a poly-tunnel so its a damp environment but I never have issues with damping off. All that is of no great help to you . I think your problem is with one of your ingredients or are you reusing wooden trays ?.
I have used a soil blocker for two seasons now and I love it.
My mix is 50% of my own compost (sieved) 50% peat, I also add a little perlite . Unlike some people (youtube vids) I only plunge the blocker in to the mix once this gives me a block which holds together and roots can penetrate easily .I’ve got a cat and my neighbors have four, for some strange reason since I started no dig / mulch on the surface gardening, the cats have not crapped in my veg garden. How ever I have a load of sandy gravel stored in the garden, this they have destroyed.
My take on the rats . I make hot compost heaps, while there may be a risk of rats while the compost has fresh material in it once composted there is no food left so no attraction , I mature my finished compost for at least three months so I expect nature will break down any deposits before I put it on the beds.
This may interest you Dealing with Rats in the compost .I live near the west coast of Ireland, I mulch all my vacant beds (except those intended for root crops) with fresh sea weed.
I have never washed the sea weed and its never been a problem.
The mulch goes down Oct/Nov, I also add autumn leaves to the mulch just to keep the soil covered. I did a quick check just now, sea weed has disintegrated but the leaves are very much intact, I will rake these off before using the beds. The surface soil is alive with worms and I expect lots of other life forms I can not see.
Very good article on seaweed here >> http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/seaweed.html