Improving soil in Autum/ Winter Cheaply!

antw23uk

Hi All
I help out at a local stables, riding and mucking out (Back into horse riding after many years break) and I have just started to bring home a sack of well rotted horse manure every time I am down there ..(a few times a week and all weekends) and its absolutley lovely stuff and of course free.

I have started digging over the little bare soil I have and adding a couple of inches of this muck to it and digging it in. I will add more as and when all the perenials start to die down so come winter when the garden is pretty bare this stuff will be dug in ALL over the beds.

So if you need to improve your soil on a budget (and what gardener doesnt) then contact your local stables and im sure they will welcome you turning up with a sack or two.

Dont forget to go for the dark, almost black manure which is well rotted and shouldnt smell ... if it does have a smell it will smell almost 'sweet'

Anybody else do this? :T

antw23uk

And a new bed waiting for planting over the next few months. Used to have a row of trees there but they came out and a patio and pergola where put in which we are really please about



I know im sad but i love my garden so much

lostinrates

Yep, we have a yard, so have lots of manure. In a few weeks we will be shovelling and putting on the garden, We put it on quite thickly, frankly because its Pretty limitless in supply. There is very little bedding in ours, and i know what our horses have eaten and what has been used in the fields (very important). I approached people in the local allotments to ask if they wanted ome and they said yes but never came. . I have loads of room to store it, but really would prefer to give it away and let people use it! People around here sell it too.

Don't make the mistake i did and put manure round lupins. They do not like it!

antw23uk

lostinrates wrote: »

Yep, we have a yard, so have lots of manure. In a few weeks we will be shovelling and putting on the garden, We put it on quite thickly, frankly because its Pretty limitless in supply. There is very little bedding in ours, and i know what our horses have eaten and what has been used in the fields (very important). I approached people in the local allotments to ask if they wanted ome and they said yes but never came. . I have loads of room to store it, but really would prefer to give it away and let people use it! People around here sell it too.

Don't make the mistake i did and put manure round lupins. They do not like it!

Thanks for mentioning that as i am undecided about my two lupin plants this year. They are new but have been ravaged by slugs so i was either going to lift them into pots or cut them back (trust me there isnt a lot left) and mulch over them! I think i will lift them and put them in the cold frame

Ant.