Straight Horse Manure Vs Topsoil?

Stigura

Forgive me. I know absolutely nothing about these things.

Just that I want to cover a patch of ground, to make a rock strewn place smoother. And, that's it, really. Not concerned about growing anything on it afterwards.

Topsoil would cost me a fortune. But, I have a vast supply of horse manure to hand.

Is there any massive reason I couldn't just drag barrow loads of that up, for the rest of my miserable life. Chucking it down on the rocky grass I presently have?

I know it'd likely remain ~ as it is now ~ rather soft. But, how about if I chucked grass seed at it? Would that take, and form a firmer root mat

Out of my depth here.

Thanks.

Lumen

Would you not just plant stuff that likes rocky ground?

Stigura

Excellent! I never saw that coming!

Sorry; I don't want to plant anything, particularly. I just want it levelled off and to get the surface rocks out of the way.

I already did a thread around this matter. Just having another stab, following input and further consideration. This one sort of narrows it right down to the one consideration.

Basically: My manure heap Never gets to be anything but a soft quagmire. (But, superficial grass ~ and nettles ~ will grow On it). Just wondering if a 'layer' of the stuff might take a carpet of grass .....

For the record; It presently has a beautiful head of tall grass on it. It's just too lumpy for my purposes.

_Brian

You’ll need topsoil or that part of the garden will be sticky and outgrow the rest considerably.

Plenty of veg gardeners will happily take the horse manure off your hands.

Stigura

Aah! Thanks, Brian. The Sticky issue is exactly what I was getting pings off of.

I've seen how my manure bay ~ although it must be said; It's a concrete slab, walled in ~ never becomes less than a soft mound I'd sink into, if I tried to walk onto it.

Still suspected it'd lack the substance to become much more though, slung on the bare ground.

Vegetable growers? I suspect there's more horse keepers than veg / rose growers in this land beyond the fields you know.

Got me thinking though. A neighbour's edging toward building a new cottage on his land. That's bound to produce topsoil. Wonder what the exchange rate would be? I'd probably be happy with 3 of mine to one of his, if he collected and delivered.

What sort of %age do ye thing might make 'normal' ground?

SouthWesterly

Horse manure? What county are you in?

Stigura

Leitrim. There's lots of it here.

SouthWesterly

Stigura wrote: »

Leitrim. There's lots of it here.

The one good thing about Leitrim and you're too far away:)