Growmore or Chicken Manure Pellets?

[thomasb]

Evening all,
Back in January there was a special offer at my local Countrywide store where I purchased 10Kg buckets of Growmore and Chicken manure pellets.

I am not trying to decide which would be most suitable for what I will be sowing in a few weeks. These will include potatoes, parsnips, onions and peas.  Any advice or experience of using these for different veg would be welcome.
Thanks,
Thomas

[thomasb]

[Hugh_Jones]

First point is that if you want to grow organically, then forget the Growmore, or alternatively use the Growmore and forget the organically.

As to the chicken manure pellets, these generally contain 9% Calcium in one form or another, so don`t use them on your potatoes. Otherwise dig, rake or hoe them into the soil a week or two before planting - in dry weather water well - they`re just an expensive form of `slightly fortified` humus.

[traceym]

Whats the reason for not wanting calcium where you plant spuds,i added chicken pellets when i dug my trenches,and planted my spuds today.
Do i have to dig them all out again now. :-[

[Hugh_Jones]

Although potato plants don`t mind calcium from the growing point of view, when tuberisation commences the presence of calcium in the soil can cause potato scab on the new tubers. Admittedly, with the small amount of calcium present in the chicken manure the scab is not likely to be serious and will often scrub off the tubers when they are prepared for use - some varieties, however, are more susceptible while others are scab resistant.  Anybody growing potatoes for the first time, or who has not encountered scab before, however, may well get into a panic on seeing heavily scabbed potatoes, (one of my neighbours even called in a Min. of Ag Inspector when he got it and even after re-assurance binned the lot) and you are certainly better off without it than with it.

I certainly wouldn`t dig them up again, but if you find scab in your crop don`t worry, it shouldn`t be a bad attack and the scabs should only be skin deep and will either scrub or peel off.

[traceym]

Thanks Hugh,i can breath out now ;D