Well Rotted Horse Manure, now or in Spring??

We have quite a sandy soil and on the RHS website, it says you shouldn't use manure on that kind of soil until Spring. But a lot of other sites have said put on in Autumn. Need to weed everything out first though, as our garden has been taken over !!

We will be growing mainly Brassicas next year and maybe try some leeks too.

 

Well I am no expert and not going to suggest I know better than the RHS...however having had horses at home for over 20 years I do know quite a lot about manure funnily enough. I honestly can't see any harm in manuring your ground now. I put manure on beds as and when the manure heap gets to overflowing throughout the year.
Perhaps the majority of the goodness might be washed out by Spring but to my mind the value of manure is to improve soil structure much much more than any fertilising benefit. If you can only manure once then maybe early Spring would be more beneficial as long as the manure is well rotted. You could afford to put on less well rotted now and let it continue the process over winter. You really can afford to put on loads as it reduces dramatically over time. I normally will put on a good 8 inches over the whole bed and it will go down to about 1/2 an inch in a year or so. Just remember that manure will be acidic and Brassicas like a limey soil.

 

I do both, Autumn and late Winter early spring, but i use cow manure and you will get some weed seeds in the manure which will be down to how clean the fields and hay are were you get the manure from

 

Thank silu, that's great advice from a manure expert!!

Think I'll wait till Spring to manure and get some lime for the brassicas! Got to get on top of the weeds first though!!

I am also going to make up some comfrey compost too!!

I wonder if it would be ok to fertilise with a mixture of comfrey and liquid seaweed as well as the manure. My garden seems to need a boost after all this rain, I think (Judging by the state of some of the plants) that a lot of nutrients have been washed out!!

 

I normally put mine on late Autumn, most things have died down so less risk of burning foliage (although I avoid layering on the crown of plants) & let the worms work it in over winter. Silu is correct about improving soil structure rather than directly feeding plants

 

Autumn for me too. Agree, manure is all about feeding the soil and adding structure to it. Quite different to fertiliser