[ytyynycefn]

A poo-related question...

I've been accumulating horse manure (with straw) in two bins I lashed togther out of pallets and electrical wire (the gaffer tape wouldn't stick  :? ) - filled them up, covered them with some old carpet, and left them to it - they've steamed gently and now have sunk quite a lot, and the muck has mostly gone from being straw with lumps of poo to something almost burgundy in colour, with much shorter stalks of straw which smells quite sweet and pleasant - does this now qualify as WRM?

The other thing - my manure gets delivered to my plot in black bags - now that my bins are full, if I just pile the bags up against the fence, will they rot down as well as if the manure was in a heap?

Cheers!

[noshed]

Yes and yes I think. If it smells good it is and plastic bags seem to be fine - loads of people on our site use them when their heap is full.

[muntjac]

Do you turn the manure in your bins over from one to the other to allow more air to get in ? if you can it helps  
Well rotted manure should have no smell of manure to it other than a sweet warm smell
Yes you can keep it in black bags .put them against a south facing wall if you can,  put a couple pints water in them this will stop the sun from evaporating the moisture from them so much.( black ATTRACTS  heat more than white ) ,stack and forget them until you have space in your bins.
If you have a piece of ground that is not going to be used  for roots dump it on there and then cover it with a carpet or tarp .
Finally if you are going to be digging manure into your plot .dump a load from your bins at each side end of where you are digging so you dont have to carry barrow loads back to the ground your working on then you can have an empty bin to dump the bagged stuff in

hope that helps

[ytyynycefn]

Cheers for that - the bins filled up before I had any ground cleared to put any on - then more arrived!  I've put a load on next year's spud bed, and covered it with black plastic to rot down and hopefully get incorporated by worms over the winter.  There's another pile rotting down on what will be next year's squash bed - I'll spread it out a bit more when the beans have come out of there.

I'm hoping to leave a little space at the top of the bins (I have been turning them, but a sprained wrist from lugging bags of the stuff have put paid to that for a week or so!) to use as hot beds next spring.  I've chucked a couple of bags on the compost heap too, to get that cooking a bit better.

I've asked the manure man to stop delivering for a few months - I'll want a bit more to heat up my hot beds in late winter, but definitely have enough for now!  It's like a mountain of the blooming stuff at the moment!

[muntjac]

your nieghbours need any?

[ytyynycefn]

your nieghbours need any?

No - the bloke's horses are very prolific and generous with their manure!  Quite a few people keep them horses around here, so we all get at least 12 bags of it delivered to our plots every 10-14 days!  :shock:

[muntjac]

guess its stop getting it then , but unfortunatly the suplier may get rid of it elsewhere and stop supplying you
 :cry:

[ytyynycefn]

guess its stop getting it then , but unfortunatly the suplier may get rid of it elsewhere and stop supplying you
 :cry:

No chance of that - he's more than happy to deliver it, as he usually has to pay a contractor to get it disposed of!  There really is TONS of the stuff up for grabs!

[muntjac]

free ads then mate ..both benefit ,  " free manure delivery charged only "

[shaun]

if you know a builder or a builders merchant get yerself a couple of those plastic bulk bags (the ones that have sand etc in them) also they are great to put leaves in for 12 months or so.