Perceived wisdom is you only put well rotted horse manure on the soil. Given that it is there I'd let it sit on the surface and dig it in as late as possible. Don't put carrot or parsnip seed in where you have spread the manure.

How long would you say manure needs to be left before it can described as "well rotted" MG? I was planning to spread some on the vegetable beds today, and it was fresh back in March. Nothing will be dug in for a couple of months. Am I right in thinking you shouldn't manure onion beds, either?

Hi Gattina a year minimum two if poss. so should just about be okay to spread now. We've always manured our onion bed by digging in lots of compost in the autumn.

That begs the question: when do you normally plant your onions, MG? Round here (major onion growing countryside) the sets are planted in October/November. I suppose I could hold off the next planting until spring and use seedlings instead, could I?
I'm sorry, Doug, I seem to have hijacked your question, but it's really useful in that it's one that I need to know about, too.

We plant our onion sets in spring March or even early April - the soil is too cold and wet in winter and the sets simply rot if planted in the autumn.

There really does seem to be a difference in Scotland and here - despite a couple of falls of snow and some night frosts, our soil is still relatively warm and dry, and November, December and January tend to be almost mild, but then February and March are dire months for dreadful cold and wet, by which time the onions are growing fairly strongly and seem to withstand the worst of it. That's the problem with transferring here from the UK - you expect things to be warmer here and they aren't, and things just happen in a different order. I can't rely on UK gardening books to give me definitive advice, and I can't rely on the familiar varieties I used to grow to perform in the same way. I AM learning, but it's a long, slow process!

Have fun Gattina and post blogs of the differences so others know too :-)

Oh Dear, MG - I have a nasty feeling that would only confuse me as well as everyone else!
It is quite interesting though, and we have definitely noticed a change in climate patterns, even just in the seven years we've been here. The temperatures in winter and summer are hitting new extremes, the drought in summer brings new problems with desperate wildlife searching for water as well as killing many of the plants that would have survived happily back in 2005, and the last three winters have been very, very harsh. Even the locals are despairing, and this is an intensively farmed part of the world (potatoes, onions, and thousands of hectares under fruit trees). Many have gone, or expect to go out of business. We stopped to have a chat with a farmer neighbour yesterday as we went on our afternoon walk, and commented on the beautiful weather. "Do you think we'll have a winter as bad as last year?" we asked.
"Oh yes."
"When will the really bad snow arrive?"
"When you really need it least, and aren't expecting it!"
Apparently you can't discount really bad winter conditions until the middle of May, and the last two years, hundreds of thousands of cherry trees down on the plain were coated in ice just as the blossom opened.
We are very fortunate and seem to have chosen an area to live in that has its own microclimate, so we don't suffer the worst weather, and overall we don't get the appalling levels of wetness and general damp of the UK - even winter is relatively dry.
I have been trying harder than ever to follow the examples of our neighbours and garden according to the lunar calendar (we buy our new one every year). I'm still not entirely convinced it makes THAT much difference, but it is so universally accepted as the norm, that there must, however inexplicably, be some sound reasoning behind it, and that's good enough for me.

Gattiana trust your crops will do well this coming year... if you'd like a comp. copy of In Tune with the Moon 2013 send me a pm with your address and I will post to you.
Mg

Cheers for the help will let ya know if I've killed or cured from Doug

If you can find some earthworm castings, you can use those to inocculate the manure, and that will speed the rotting process somewhat.

I didn't know that about "innoculating" the manure with wormcasts, Tugbrethil - how interesting. Does it apply to compost heaps, too?

I didn't either and am not sure what a worm cast, which is simply soil, is going to do... can you expand Tugb. please.

Worm castings are often richer in beneficial soil organisms than straight soil is. If a neighbor has a well operated compost heap, spreading a few shovels full of his/her finest will do the same thing. Vermicompost is even better, but is often even harder to find than worm castings. If you can manage the time and equipment to make a good 48 hour tea of any of the three, that will work even faster.