Kitchen Garden Forum

Aagh, every girl's ideal Christmas present ! Mine anyway !

Farmer has let me down - no delivery & he is blocking my calls. I'm going to have to buy online! I don't want to use the horse drop offs as too full of wood chips & little manure, but OK for mulching flower beds & raspberries. Anyone got any recommendations? Got my eye on Compost Direct, especially with the one that is manure + soil improver as I've got sandy soil. It will cost more but my soil needs it desperately.

Westi ,is there no other farmers near you , the one your dealing with sounds like he I giving you the run around

Hi Robo, I do have another couple I think, but they don't advertise or even name their farm on any signs. Just called the Farmhouse & looks deserted & other has quite a few houses nearby with none identified as farmer or worker by size or signage. I would not just visit any one of them out of the blue, that would be a bit like cold calling, especially as I generally go past on a Sunday & the residents of these are playing with their children. (Well not currently, but been planning to get this for winter covering since Summer). I did hijack a guy on a tractor who slowed down & let us pass & asked & he was pretty evasive. I read into that they have a better market for it as the tractor guy turned into the land with the housed cows - massive & lots of sheds. No idea why the cows are housed but maybe a breeding program?

Anyway my sandy soil needs help quickly & my compost is pretty pants as bins too big to heat up enough to kill weed seeds & invaded by bind weed, but still thankful to my neighbour who built them. Hence going for Plan B & buying in (Xmas pressie from the Mr), but have no knowledge of produced compost except the plastic bag small stuff, some also pants. The council's is not too smart either & full of wood, so they are out of the mix & their heap is supposed to be big & very hot from the blurb on the site.

Oops! Long post - just read desperate as soil in current condition is not going to grow good crops!

See if you can find a Young Farmers contact - round here they do an annual muck haul for charity. I get a free (well bartered for veg and bedding plants) trailer of muck every March.

Hi Westi, just did a gumtree search and got this "10 ads for manure in Stuff for Sale in Christchurch, Dorset" hope it helps.

Good luck Westi.

Thanks Colin! I rang a couple of these from Gumtree but they were horse not cow & from my fence chat with the neighbour he went to look at some & said it was pretty much what we get dropped off at the allotment. I will bite the bullet & give it a try & report back - who know might get lucky, but I'm sure it will be reasonable even if not brilliant!

I don't suppose you have the room, Westi but, I work on a six month system, stack the new stuff, and use the heap that has been stacked for six months....

Ooops sorry Westi , I only use horse so that was prominent in my mind, on a side note what is the advantage of Cow over horse?

Colin2016 wrote:Ooops sorry Westi , I only use horse so that was prominent in my mind, on a side note what is the advantage of Cow over horse?

More dung less bedding.
Dung isn't large pellets, it's sloppy, so you get a better distribution and rot down.

I far prefer cow manure to horse manure for the same reasons as quoted by Peter. And when we had the allotment, we did just as OH does: we received the fresh cow manure straight from the farm in spring (the winter bedding, in other words), piled it up and covered it with a large black baler sheet until the following winter when it was spread. By that time it had 'matured' considerably.

I work on a six month system, stack the new stuff, and use the heap that has been stacked for six months...

Similarly, I leave the pile delivered to stand. In theory, the manure is delivered about now (but the rain has prevented this so far). I'll spread some on spaces I am not using but 50% stays in the pile. A big heap will go under the squash in the spring. Sadly I don't quite have the space to have two piles.

From what I saw of Charles Dowding's set up, he stores a lot of muck for use. His pile was very neat and rectangular and huge!

It came today, some issues as their grab thingie truck was out of action so a huge rented pallet truck came down & driver did not judge the height & it took down a huge tree branch which wedged between the cabin & trailer bit then the troops rallied down there & sawed it in 1/2 & got it out, then we then had issues with it coming off on a pallet onto a grass surface after a day of rain. Hence it got stuck & is now only inches away from the road but won't cause any issues with the cars passing.

The good news is it is so nice & fine & dark with no bits. My cow manure was old but hay was still present so a perfect mulch to let the worms do their thing over winter, but this has no bits. May have to re-think? Do I throw it on the top like the manure or dig it in? I'm worried digging it in, even if covered the water will leech under & wash it down through the sandy soil to be of no use to the baby plants when transplanted in? Do I move it inside the plot & apply & dig in early Spring?

Can you spread it on top, Westi, and then cover the bed(s) with black plastic? The worms will do their bit underneath.