Topic: buying sacks of soil

[STHLMgreen]

I have a new allotment. It hasn't been used for two years except last year when half was used for a crop of potatoes. It is about 8-10 inches deep before you hit clay. I was told not to try to dig the clay up. I wanted to add some nutrients when I dig it up in the coming weeks and take out the weeds, as I'll use it in the spring.

I looked into getting manure but don't have a lot to spend right now. There is a large garden store here with 5 big bags for a pretty good price and thought if nothing else we can buy five bags and at least put something good into the soil.

I wasn't into gardening when I lived in the States or England and now I'm learning to garden in Swedish (as I learn Swedish), so it makes for an interesting time! It will be easier next year when I make a few friends on the lottie to ask these kinds of things.

The choices in the 5 bag offer are: (as best I can translate)

Bark soil
Cow manure
Top Dress     (not sure what this is)
Plant soil
Mulch
Peat soil
Peat soil with fertilizer and I think calcium
and Chicken manure

Any suggestions/explanations?
All come in 50L except the chicken manure which comes in a 15L bag.

Thanks! What would I do without this forum?

[Chantenay]

Hi - good luck with getting your plot under control. It has taken me three years to get into a reasonable shape but worth every minute.
One of the things that takes time is tracking down the cheapest local suppliers for all sorts of things such as seeds, chicken wire, netting and so on. There will be a local allotment society nearby, if not on your own plot, and they will have lots of ideas for you.
Check in the yellow pages for stables and see if they will let you take their horse poo to make your own manure. A local farmer here delivers a trailer of well rotted manure for £20- gorgeous stuff. I will leave more knowledgeable folks to advise you on the bought stuff but I would have thought anything labelled "farmyard manure" would be good.

[Money_Bunny]

As Chantenay mentioned it is worth asking at the local stableyard to see if they will allow you to go and bag up some manure for free.

We keep horses and are usually grateful to anyone who wants to come along and take manure although this year we've used some of it on the allotment.

There's load still left though........just a pity no-one near us seems to be interested this year  ::)

Horses usually have a round 8 poo's a day each so you can imagine that it doesn't take much time for the stuff to build up!!!