Do you remember seeing your granddad on his allotment, shoveling bucket-loads of horse manure into his runner bean trenches? Or the old chap down the road, who mulched his sweet peas with manure bought from the local farm?
When I was doing my horticultural training (more years ago now that I’d care to admit to), we were all taught to incorporate “well-rotted farmyard manure” into the planting holes whenever we planted a tree, shrub, rose or perennial.
Well, for most gardeners today, these piles of steaming dung are almost a thing of the past. First, you have to find the stuff. Then, before you add it to the soil you have to be certain it is well rotted, or fully decomposed, (that is, older than six months), otherwise it depletes the soil of nitrogen as it carries on rotting.
Also, you have to be sure that the farm supplying the manure hasn’t use certain herbicides and chemicals – in recent years thousands of gardeners have unwittingly bought-in contaminated manure, which has ruined crops and killed plants.
No, these days gardeners have welcome alternative sources of goodness when it comes to planting. And one of the products I’ve fallen in love with is Gro-Sure Planting Magic. Just look at what it contains: water storing granules (for better control of moisture available to the roots over summer), dried seaweed (for overall healthy plant growth), fast-acting feed (to get the new plant off to a great start), and slow-release feed (to supply specific nutrients for the first six months after planting).
It’s clean and dry to use, and it comes in three useful pack sizes (700g, 2kg and 4kg).
I tried Planting Magic for the first time last year – and all of my plants thrived. I won’t be planting anything this year without it! And as for horse manure, well, I can only see me using this again when I’m digging over a large area to condition the soil – not for individual planting.
Final tip: Gro-Sure Planting Magic is a universal planting mix – suitable for all types of plants, from fruits and vegetables to trees, shrubs, bulbs, perennials and bedding plants. Incorporate just one handful of the mix into each hole (or half-a-handful when planting bedding, vegetables and small perennials). Then plant the plant, and just leave it to do its ‘magic’!
