Have you done a soil test? What is your soil texture like and what kind of organic content do you have? Until you know what you have, it is difficult to suggest what you might need and what might be best. For instance, the lime in your list wouldn't be helpful in an area with a pH that is 7 or above since optimum pH is in the 6's and lime will raise the pH. If you have particularly sandy or clayey soil, the additional organic matter in the manures would help the texture considerably. The soil test will also give you basic information on nutrients in your soil. Not all crops need the same level of nutrients (for instance if there is too much nitrogen where you plant peppers, there will be fewer fruit and more foliage). Most states have a service to do soil tests for home gardeners through their land grant university, but if you can't find one nearby, I have read that both Cornell and MA will do tests for folks anywhere in the US.

Here's a link to a basic home test on texture to get started with:

basic home soil test

I will say that while I do use horse manure in my garden (it's free and the neighbors deliver) it will have more weed seeds than most kinds of manure. Hot composting for a year will help, or just plan to use your hoe a lot.

This is a community garden? Why not ask your gardeners? Probably each will have their own preferences and some will be more knowledgeable than others.

Though I have used cotton seed meal in the distant past, I would not do that anymore as there are so many chemicals used on cotton. (Likewise, in my youth, cotton hulls made an excellent mulch for the vegetable garden, but I would not use it these days.)

Does your garden have raised beds? If so, I'd just concentrate the amendments right in the planting beds. But if you are considering tractoring the whole area, I imagine you don't have raised beds. But do individuals have their own individual planting areas? Because one person's plants may need one condition, another's may need other conditions. So how about if you simply bring in the most likely useable amendments and leave them in a heap so that those who want to use it will do so and those who do not want it can ignore it.

If you get into the practice of yearly tractoring or even universal application of manure, leaf mulch, or whatever---will you be discouraging the cultivation of perennial or biennial crops such as shrub berries, certain onion family plants, strawberries, fruit trees, horseradish, rhubarb, etc?

Sounds like you really need to talk more with your gardeners.

Forgot to say that I do have large gardens and only amend where the beds are or where a new one is to be started within a year or two.

Agree with the need for getting a pro soil test done first.

My largest in-ground bed is approx. 90' x 40' (3600 sq.') and tractor tilling is the way to go for me. Faster and easier on the back than using my Troy-Built tiller as with the smaller beds. I do it after the amendments - 4-5" of manured compost plus all the straw, leaf mold, and hay mulch from the previous season - is applied to the entire bed.

Roots don't stay in rows where planted so the entire bed gets amended twice a year - fall after cleaning out the plants in the bed it all gets layered on for passive composting and in spring a couple of weeks before planting as weather permits it gets another layer and it ll gets tilled in.

During the season all the rows or patches are side dressed with additional compost with additional supplements of 10-0-10 or alfalfa meal to individual crops such as corn, onions, as the plants indicate need. I also use fertigation feedings during the season.

I have a chronic alkaline soil issue so use additional supplements to control that as needed.

I would caution you against using any fresh manure around food crops. The recommend application is that it first be composted or aged for a minimum of 90 days prior to application.

Hope this helps.

Dave

This is a large plot community garden that is managed by employees of
a company onsite. We donate all produce to a local food shelf. The
garden size is about 30 X 50 feet with additional space on the outside
walkways. It is completely fenced to discourage deer and wild turkeys
although it doesnt seem to help with voles and perhaps also rabbits.

We
have nobody who is knowledge of soil enrichment so consulting the group
didn't get us far but another corporate community garden suggested
alpaca manure because supposedly it can be used as is immediately.

I'm
trying to assess if the hassle factor and expense of enriching this
size of plot outweights doing something more targeted to where the crop
row will be placed vs puting down INCHES of some amendment EVERYWHERE
and working it in. Possibly the answer this year should be to use a
small tractor to break things up. Then add compost and some custome
nutrients like blood, bone and alfalfa meal to each planting hole, feed
with side dressing of either full organic or delayed release product and
then end of season ammend the entire plot with manure or plant a cover
crop like hairy vetch (which I think helps nitrogen) which would be
tilled in the following spring.

We've used a little over 1/3 of
our budget this year on growing plant seedlings. So cost concerns are a
concern. We probably have about $500-600 remaining in the buget.

We have no raised beds and likely will not be going with any in the future.

It's
true we haven't done a soil sample. The soil there tends a bit toward
sandy in some places. I know that some amendments are going to throw off
Ph and that could be a bad thing. I'll check ph so that we don't do
that. I was curious about general amendment advice

This is a good discussion. I would just add that I agree with Dave that tractor tilling and uniform amending seems the best approach. If you aren't going to put in raised beds, which basically define the growing layout more or less permanently, I would rather have a whole plot equally amended. That way you have flexibility in future years, if you decide to change the way the crops are laid out. That would be a little more expensive, in that you'd have to purchase more amendment, but you'd end up with a plot that was equally fertile, and you wouldn't have to keep track of where the soil is better. Also agree that roots don't stay in rows, so not amending the soil under the walkways isn't necessarily smart.

"Then add compost and some custome nutrients like blood, bone and alfalfa meal to each planting hole..."

I agree that sounds tempting but in actual practice "hole prepping" doesn't work well for production simply because the roots don't stay in the prepped hole. Depending on the plant, taproot plants like tomatoes, carrots, beets, etc. can roam for anywhere from several inches to several feet out of their hole. Same goes for the large plants like squash, melons, and corn. Shallow rooted vegetables like leafy greens and onions will work with so-called row or trench amending but most of the other vegetables suffer with that approach.

I understand that cost is a factor and I save a great deal by doing my own large-scale composting. But IF you have a local source of good manured compost or well aged manures at a decent price then a plot that size would only need 1-2 full pick-up loads. I realize you consider it a large plot but no offense intended, but scale is relative to one's experience. 1500 sq.' isn't a large plot. It is smaller than many home and most community gardens I work with and though it can appear to be a daunting task at first it is actually easily amended as I think you will discover. And for a lot less $$ than buying 10 to 12 25# bags of 10-10-10 fertilizer and mixing that in. :)

Dave

You just shouldn't do anything without a soil test unless the soil type is very well known in the area so you can bet what the soil test would be. You simply must spend the $20 or so on a test so you won't throw the rest of the money away. THEN decide on the inputs. You can certainly do a topping of cheap compost and manure and have the whole area cultivated but after that I would put in permanent wide rows and paths. All vegetables have different needs and I prefer to prep a bed for each crop with the right stuff for it. My field is 1801x130 now and that works out best.

generally tilling in large amounts of matter, composted or not, early enough in the season, or the previous fall, will prevent deficiencies in every nutrient except N. Since I plant my garden, I know where seedlings will go and where I will seed directly. Seedling beds will just be covered with leaves, and I will use urea.

Note that after two applications of city compost on this site in 2008-2009, the P and K were above optimum. I use leaves because they are free, but also because they add the least possible amount of P and K. Previously I gardened in very sandy soils, and mulching like that attracted legions of voles. In that case it is best to till in everything every year.

After a soil test, it sounds like an application of composted manure and tilling it in is going to be an adequate first step. Two pick up truck loads is about 4 cubic yards if I remember correctly. I know compost in my area is $23 a cu yard, is composted manure a comparable price?

In addition to that (and according to a soil sample), I think something like the COF by Solomon or a tweaked version is probably a decent idea to add in. If that is cost prohibitive maybe adding some enrichment of compost and some of this COF to each plant hole/area would be a winning combo.

Did I miss anything (or misunderstand anything) ?

I like digdirt's comments.

I haven't done much soil testing...mostly ph to see if I need lime. I believe in a good amount of rotted organic matter tilled in. Then I like to till some mild organic fertilizer into the row before planting....slow release action. Also I do some extra feeding of fertilizer..Also I have heavily amended the texture of my silty clay loam soil to promote extra looseness 3 inches of sand and 4 inches of local sphagnum peat moss worked into the top 7 inches of topsoil...love the results. Did I say I love the results!!?

"if I remember correctly. I know compost in my area is $23 a cu yard, is composted manure a comparable price?"

That would be a high price in my location. Double what compost costs per cubic yard around here.

And please note that composted manure and manured compost (what I recommended above) are not the same thing. Composted manure is just manure that has been piled and allowed to age. It very likely has not had any additional ingredients added to it so its composition and nutrients will be very different from manured compost which is compost made up of multiple organic materials to which some manure has been added.

Composted manure will add some nutrients to the soil but adds minimal, if any, organic matter so soil tilth improvement is minimal. Manured compost (compost with manure in it) does both.

Dave

Perhaps much horse manure these days has wood based bedding. The horse manure I get has a large amount of hay in it and that makes a good compost type of manure.

Good to know the difference between composted manure and manured compost. I'll be sure to determine if sellers in my area also make this distinction and if how they process it follows the description you give.
The only source of bulk compost that I'm aware of in my area is a garden center that makes it from yard waste and such. I don't think any manure is present.
Am I thinking correctly that a manured compost may be more readily available as you get farther away from the city and suburbs?

Where are you located?

Minneapolis/St Paul Minnesota

Have you checked with Extension to see if they know of other suppliers rather than just a spendy garden center? Here in Denver, there are lots of locations, even within city. But, you may drive a bit too.

St. Paul (Ramsey Cty) runs its own city run composting site and makes it available to residents for a nominal fee. That is one that Google pulls up. Their website says they are currently out of compost for the season but contacting them can put you in touch with other sources. It is very likely that Minn. has a similar program.

Dave

I'll look into the Ramsey county site. It's not far at all.
I don't have any issues coming up with Compost near me and the 4 cubic yards for $23 a yard isn't going to kill me.
I thought the idea was to get manured compost though. I'm not coming up with much for that yet. I see the opposite (composed manure) everywhere I turn when searching online for my area.

I'm sorry if I'm repeating what others have said but I have a plot in a community garden and have thought about this. My community garden is 30+ years old so I don't know how they prepared the soil way back then but now when a plot is turned over to a new gardener it is up to the new gardener to till and amend the soil. This turns out really very well although sometimes it means dealing with a garden where the soil was amended very little if at all and the weeds grew rampant or if you're lucky the previous plot holder took care of the soil. In your community garden project, if you want to till and amend the soil for your first gardeners you should get as much good quality non-manure compost as you can afford, till that in then let your gardeners add manure or anything else they want later on. I think this will get the soil ready to plant without a lot of cost. If the individual gardeners want to test the soil in their garden plots and add amendments let them do it themselves; this is an important part of being a gardener and very satisfying. Often landscape suppliers will offer discounts to community gardening projects and, at least in my area, the municipal sanitary service makes cheap compost available made from the garden waste they've pick-up from the green bins... Good luck with your garden project...