Cheap manure ideas please

I'm at the start of a mammoth task to convert my sad patchy lawn of a front garden into something nicer looking. Been itching to do it for AGES but hubby and in-laws were getting in the way Their idea of a garden is tarmac, whereas I'm pining for a wild overgrown jungle!
Anyways, i've finally got a go-ahead from the dear spouse and I'm now digging up the said sad lawn and trying to improve the soil. The big question is - where to get lots of manure or other organic stuff?

I do have a wormery but I've only JUST got it so no compost to be expected from that till possibly late autumn. There may be some worm tea coming but I really don't know how much. And I really have to start planting stuff come autumn.

I can get some manure/compost from Homebase but I also need sand, and I'm not spending more than £30-40 for the lot. I've also got a 7-kilo pot of chicken poo but I don't think that alone would do me, what d'you think? The scale of the project for the mo is a 7-meter long border, about 70-80 cm wide, and an 80-cm diameter hole in the middle of the lawn. I'm gonna dig the whole garden up eventually, but I may not get round to stage 2 till next summer, at which point my wormery should have kicked into full production.

I'm not rich so have to be inventive. I was thinking, maybe I could get some rabbit poo from people who keep them as pets? Maybe ask for some on Freegle? I hear rabbit manure can be stuck directly into soil without composting it first because apparently it doesn't scorch plant roots. Is that so?

Do you folks know of any other sources of cheap/free ready-to-use poo? Even if it's a little at a time would be good.

Many thanks.

 

Oh by the way, if anyone knows any guidelines on how much sand/manure/other stuff to use per sq m would be cool too my soil at mo is 3-5" heavy-ish topsoil, then pockets of brown clay, building sand, more soil, various size stones (lots of), and RUBBLE :gaagh: our road used to be a builders yard apparently :( I'm pulling all the bricks out of course.

The pH of all that sstuff when well mixed is 7, or so my cheapy B&Q tester would have me believe.

 

ask your nearest horsey person they usually poo pick and put it the hedges around their grazing fields im sure they wont mind you raiding it , that or their muck heap x

 

The only problem with the horse stables is transporting it cleanly in your car
Getting it delivered becomes expensive
A someone has to shovel it into a trailer
B the cost of fuel and driver and time to deliver it

It is out there it is free, just mucky

I used to take my grandaughter to her riding every Saturday, where she was thrown several times (dangereous sport) She stopped when I discovered she did not like it as much as she showed and was only going to appease other grandfather who had horses at the stables
I paid the lessons for her to excercise his horses for free :-)

Jack McH

 

Thanks for that John,
I am planning to add more in the future, as I said I've got a wormery so as that generates worm tea and compost that's all going into that project (well maybe somewhere else if there's a lot of worm tea, but I've no other great emergencies at mo). So over a year of two this will be a very well fertilised patch.

My quest for now is just to get enough done so I can start planting, i.e. the bare minimum my plants will need to start off with.

 

that's some granddad rivalry going on in your family, Jack!

 

What if I just laise the whole thing with chicken poo? As I said I've got a whole tub of the stuff, and it says only use 150g per square meter but I'm already using about twice as much. Or is chicken poo not rich enough?

It being pellets tho, will probably be less accessible to the plants than normal manure?

 

I can't really help much, but unless you've no alternative, don't immediately buy anything from Homebase, assuming that because it's a 'shed' it will automatically be cheaper, it won't - they are really expensive. You might want to take a look in Wickes or B&Q.

I'm surprised that in Herts., there aren't some stables (or even horses in a field) within a reasonable distance. If there is .... get some bin-bags from the supermarket, (the ones I use are labelled 'rubble sacks' - it just means they're a lot more sturdy than the useless things you put in your bin!) - anyone with a horse or stables or a riding school will be only too delighted for you to bag up manure and take away as much as you can possibly cram in a car - just put a few sheets of newspaper down to keep the boot clean - and they won't charge you a penny for it.

 

The more I experiment with anaerobic tubs, them more i'm thinking of moving away from the worm bins for most of the stuff. Its so much quicker and it'll digest bindweed, couch grass and weed seeds.

 

If we had a magazine area, i'd be asking you if we could put that reply in there as an article John

 

Slightly off topic - but many moons ago, my Father was offered 'some' pig manure which he readily accepted. We had a tiny garden - about 12' x 20' - and although Dad had an allotment, it was gated with only the 'landlord' and allotment holders having keys, so the manure was delivered to our house. I recall no more than it came in those old wooden banana boxes (if anyone remembers them, about 2' wide, 2' high and about 4' long) - in fact it came in over 30 old wooden banana boxes!

My Mum was ..... well, let's just say 'seriously miffed' - especially so since it wasn't exactly well-rotted, or indeed rotted at all, we had a particularly hot summer and it took Dad weeks to load the stuff into the trailer behind his bike and pedal it the 2 miles to his allotment.

 

Thanks John, I've already worked some of that out. Basically what we're talking about is adding as much structure to the clay in order to break it down and distribute it more evenly. As well as fertilise if a bit. There's also organic and un-organic fertilisers. See, I'm not totally dumb :WINK1:
I do know not to use fresh manure (stinks if nothing else! )
That said, in my native cold country a much favoured way to improve soil with no effort at all is to dig up a piece of land in autumn (that's where the effort ends :yess, then pour over it the freshest, runniest, stinkiest cow dong and leave it to overwinter under snow. Ta da!