Manure

Spent mushroom compost is the best. But usually has lime granules mixed with it so PH is alkaline.
Your grass cuttings will probably contain many weed seeds and can be dug into your ground a spit deep.

You may get mushrooms appearing though, like a neighbour of mine. Just enjoy. (With bacon).

John.

I'm pretty new to gardening, so I'm not and expert. But this is how we are building the garden beds. We have been putting our grass clippings aside to compost for a couple months. Now we are mixing store-bought composted cow manure, the grass clippings (not fully composted) and the topsoil. We have also added some pellet lime to the soil since there are a lot of oak trees here which their leaves acidify the soil.

Since we are using grass clippings and have a weedy yard, we have also been laying down weed fabric and mulching the beds to keep down the weeds.

I have only used horse manure once. We were doing a project in an area that was all sand. Horses are common there, so we made raised beds and mixed half manure and half sand. This seemed to work well and they had a nice crop of veggies from it.

Hi, I'm no expert but I believe its important that the manure needs to be well rotted - is that right John?

That is definite Dawnsaunt. New manure contains far too many harmful nitrates and nitrites. Animal manure should be at least 1 year old and if you can wait for about 3 years when it goes all crumbly and dry then so much the better.

That is of course until Europe brings in a 'Use by' date for it. (Sorry. Not being political. Just my stupid SOH.)

John.

Hooray! I got something right! Only joking, thought it was worth mentioning because its an important point as I guess most manure is fresh when received. I know what you mean about "red tape", we'll be taxed on gardening next, sorry that just slipped out.

Dawn, we already are. Those silly little plastic tags that tell you nothing are now a legal requirement when you buy a plant from a registered DEFRA seller. They have to pay HMG 5p for each one that they sell. Just for your info. LoL.

John

Hi John, why am I surprised?

any well rotted manure will do , if you cannot get access to old farmyard/ horse muck , you can buy bags from your garden centre.
best to get a compost heap going asap , plenty of advice already on goy about this ......steve