[pepsi100]

I have a bag of coffee grounds and quite a large bag of chicken poo, now can I mix em together and leave in the bag to rot away, or do I just spread it over trhe garden

I used to have a compost heap, grass cuttings, but me hens rippped it apart to get to the worms, but it had rotted prety well by them, now I keep it in a distbin and let it rot away in there

I have heard Chicken manure is too strong and should rot a while, but coffee grounds, do they rot away /

I add to it every time I make a pot of coffee, seems daft to sling it away, so how long do they take to break down?

[corynsboy]

Hi Pepsi100

We need to tread a little carefully here.

I do know that chicken poo is a bit "hot" (very high in nitrogen) when fresh so it needs a while to "cool down".   

You can make chicken poo tea.  You’ll need large water butt (35 gallons) and a 1/4 filled potato sack of chicken poo.  Fill the butt with water (tap or rain water will do).  Tie off the sack and drop the sack in the butt, weigh it down and leave it well alone.  Fight the urge to stir the water, this will not help.  The water will cool down the poo in a month or two.  You can feed your plants with the resulting tea, but read up in the internet how this is done.  There are tables for nitrogen content of chicken manure it's more chemistry than gardening.  If in doubt dilute the tea again in your watering can.

To be on the safe side I'd rebuild the compost heap and compost the poo unless you are in a rush to use it.

Coffee grounds are good for the compost heap too and they do rot away.  Coffee grounds are a bit of an unusual compound.  They are generally loved by flowering plants that enjoy an acid soil but don't be led by people that tell you to put used coffee grounds straight on the soil.  You'd think that something that's been roasted and dried and boiled would be pretty inert when it comes out of the coffee maker.  It's not.  Chemical compounds in coffee bean grounds will be enjoyed by your lettuce but will damage your tomatoes.  Best to keep it off the soil and let it rot down in the compost.

As with anything you add to the compost heap layer it with different materials and keep the heap turned a couple of times a year and you should be right.  Depending on heat and light and moisture conditions the chicken poo will be ready to use in about six months if you compost it now and probably three or four months in the Spring and Summer.

[pepsi100]

Thats sounds pretty good, I have some old sand bags, I suppose they would be okay
Havent really got many plants that need watering though, I gues the grass could use it

What I have done the the compost heap is.......get a plastic dustbin, cut the bottom off, find a corner, and just put anything green in there, I guees the coffee grounds could go in, I usually cut the gras once a month, some the chickens eat, the rest goes in the bin, along with any of the bushes I cut back, the bin is usually pretty full, but when it comes to putting in grass cuttings, it has shrunk down a bit

I damp down whatever is in the dustbin when I put anything in there, its usually warmish at the bottom

When I do empty it, I just dig whatever there is in there into the chicken run, the soil in there must be pretty fertile now as when I put down the poultry grass, its showing in about 7-8 days and 3-4 inches in just over a fortnight

I used to have it as a raised flower bed, but the ground always dried out really fast, I couldnt get anything to grow there, I tried root veg, but they needed more water than the soil could hold, I tried flowers, they got so far, then just died off, no matter how much I watered them,  so I gave up on that, so the hens have it as a run now, they seem to find plenty to scratch around, even when the grass has all gone and I leave it a few days then shut it off reseed, then let them in there after a couple of weeks

When the weather improves, I will be planting out a Jasmin plant, that is about 2 feet high at the moment, but that isnt going to need anything for a year or so, until it gets established, I may put in another one, bout the same size, a few yards from it, they are only to grow over a fence to break it up a bit, rather than just a plain fence showing