How much manure?

[Curlykale]

I have been offered 2 tonnes of well rotted horse manure for £100 (delivered). Is that good value? I have no idea how big a pile that will be - I was thinking about asking some of the other lottie holders if they wanted to share. (I will need enough for about 30 raised beds 10' x 4').

Don't suppose anyone has a photo of 2 tonnes of horse manure do they??!! (And if you have, why??)

[SarzWix]

I would think that that would be roughly 2 of those big metre cubed builders bags. Unless it's very dry stuff. But assuming it to be soggy stuff, then a metre cubed builders bag holds about a tonne. Sounds like a similar price to what you can find on ebay.

[Sanjo]

Do you know whether it's amminopyralid free? or could you be landing yourselves with a future headache?

[Two_Sheds]

£100, wow.

That's why I don't use horse poo, Just garden compost, guinea pig manure & green manures.

[OverWyreGrower]

2 tonnes is approx 100 bags (we get ours in old 25kg animal feed bags - but they're not full)

I'm not sure about the price, as we get ours free from the local stables - otherwise they have to pay to have it taken away.

I could take a picture of approx a ton of the stuff in bags tonight if you really want??

We will easily use 2 tonnes on our allotment without a problem!

[OverWyreGrower]

Oh, oh, oh, whereabouts are you on the NW coast?

[glasgowdan]

I would be phoning the local stables and spending an hour scooping up a trailer full if I were you, £100 is a fair old price to try to offset by growing your own over the season. I got a load before I had the trailer, so it only worked out about 1/4 tonne, but I was right into the thick of the rotted poo in the middle of the heap and it's really improved the texture of my beds.

[Hazel at the Hill]

Is it worth it? Well £100 is a lot of money, but weigh up the fact that it is well rotted & delivered to your plot against that.

Maybe you could collect for free from a stables, but if you don't have transport, or don't want to mess up the back of your car and then store the manure in a heap to rot down for a few months, that may affect your decision.

[zazen999]

We got at least 2 builders bags full [possibly 3 or 4] for £30....we have seen others using the same muck for 2 years and had no amminopyralid problems, so we decided to get some. Took us about 14 hours over 4 weekends to move it all; there was alot of it for £30!!!

[SMT]

I personally think its a little steep. When I tried to source manure I found that you could get as much horse manure as you wanted for free. Any stables will be eager to get rid of it I would imagine. One place had 20tonnes of it just for anyone who wanted it. Trying to track down cow manure was more of an effort as they spread it back on the fields but finally sourced some for free.

Then again you are getting it delivered. I spent 1 day last week digging old rotten cow manure out of a local farm. Managed to get 2 full van loads which will do my garden nicely. The downside is it took so many man hours to get it and I managed to get my van stuck in the mud, stranded in the middle of a field! Also, the washing machine had to work over time to get those cow muck stains out!

I suppose having it delivered has some merit, but I still like the word FREE.

[gojiberry]

Last Two years we have had 20ton delivered free to our lottie. Trouble is the weight of the trailer really played havoc with the service road that we will insist on two smaller loads next year even if we have to pay for one delivery.

Ian

[jacob marley]

Seems a tad expensive to me we get approx 7 ton loads delivered to our site for £70 which i think is dear but i am the same as Two Sheds i use a lot of home made compost....jacob

[ladylottie]

Our local farmer comes every now and then with his tractor and trailer (when about 10 of us let him know we want manure) and he just drops it near our lotties. I was very lucky because he managed to reverse and unload most of it into two of my compost bins. Even so, the weight broke one of the side panels off and it was very hard work moving the stuff that missed the bins. (Wasn't I glad I didn't have to shift it all!)

But I would say £100 is a lot of money - perhaps it's because it's a single load being delivered. We paid him £30 for a trailer load each and it's beautiful stuff with no amino...etc either.

I would say - approach a local farmer.

[binley100]

Hoooow much ! We paid £25 for 3 tons .I'd find somewhere you could collect it for free. Try phoning round the local stables.

[grahama]

£100 for 2 tonnes, your having a laugh. My car smells like a pile of manure at the moment as no trailer and had to move in plastic boxes and buckets but it's rotted and free from a local stables so a no brainer really!!

Everything cleans up, well I hope so cos the dog just rolls round in there at the moment

If you don't have any transport then someone you know must, ask for a favour

Regards,

Graham