Preparing beds for spring planting with natural fertilisers

Vegetables can be grown in soils that have not been improved with fertilisers and other soil additives but the size and quality of the resultant crop will be less than if the plant is grown in soils which have been enriched with suitable fertilisers.
The kind of fertilisers I use in my own backyard consist of animal manures, spent mushroom grow bags, home made compost, blood & bone powder and dried, chipped seaweed. Soil amendments used consist of dolomite powder or sulphate of  potash.http://hobartkitchengardens.blogspot.com.au/2010/09/ph-and-nutrient-availability.html
Animal manures suitable for direct contact with plant roots include aged bags of sheep and cow manure.Bounce Back is a pelleted manure blend which is certified organic and very convenient to use. 20 kg bags of bounce back can be brought from Waratah.wholesale 1 Tara St South Hobart for $11.30     Mushroom bags can be purchased from smaller nurseries in open top bags much cheaper than the sealed 20 litre bags sold in chain stores like Bunnings and K&D. Spent mushroom bags can give you a bonus crop of mushrooms if you cover the garden bed with straw after incorporating the mushroom bags into the top ten centimetres of soil, just keep up the water and wait for the mulch to rise.
Tasmanian made100% pure  Blood & bonemeal can be purchased from Waratah or Roberts rural supplies in 25 kg bags for $30.50. Most blood and bone products on the market are only 60% pure with sawdust making up the rest.
Dried seaweed  chips can be brought from Hollanders Imports, 87 Brooker Highway Hobart just before the ABC roundabout.

Ideally these fertilisers would be incorporated into the top 20 centimetre of the garden bed four weeks before planting out but who is that organised. Roots of plants can be burned by chicken manure which is best used as an ingredient in compost, but the inputs mentioned above can be incorporated on planting day without negative affect.

Amounts spread and frequency of application depend on how poor your soil is to start with and what you want to grow. A hand full of manure pellets, blood and bone and seaweed per square metre is good every 6- 12 months  will feed most plants. If you are using sheep Manure or mushroom bags  then a bag of each per three square metres of garden bed per year will see fantastic crop production. When growing root crops like carrots and parsnips or onions and garlic wait till after a heavy feeding crop like cauliflower or corn has taken many of the nutrients out of your soil, otherwise carrots will fork and onions will not store well.
P.s.
prices may have gone up since my last update.

leaf mould compost

I went shopping at chickenfeed yesterday for large plastic bags in preparation for making leaf mould compost(LMC). LMC is a soil conditioner, it improves soil structure as well as its water holding capacity. LMC is different from regular compost due to it consisting mostly of the carbon skeletal structure left over after the tree has drawn back all the nutrients it can. The leaves once piled together and wetted take six to 12 months to turn into a fine humus based crumbly soil.
When collecting leaves wear a dust mask, the fine particles and fungi spores irritated my lungs on my first load leaving me coughing while trying to stuff the collection bags.

All my leaves came from a pile which the wind  helpfully blew into a easily harvested pile along a fence line.

Preparing the site was a simple case of removing a few persistent weeds, erecting a few star pickets and wrapping the site with a mix of mesh and roof sheeting (to prevent the fence from being rotted down as well).  A thick layer of overlapping newspapers  was put down to suppress weed infestation, was wetted to prevent the wind from blowing it away.

After reading a few articles on the web I might add a carboard wall to the inside of the mesh to maintain moisture levels all the way to the edge. Make sure your site is at least one metre by one metre.

While wearing a dust mask add leaves either pre- wetted via an old bathtub or similar. The other option is to hose liberally each layer you add it. At this stage you could sprinkle a layer of manure or blood and bone  between each layer of leaves. This addition will make it more like a regular compost pile due to the addition of nitrogen from the manure/ blood and bone. keep adding until your pile is close to a metre tall.

Over the next year occasionally check the moisture levels and spray as required. The damp environment maintains the conditions required to promote fungal and bacterial  based breakdown.