Duck Bedding Compost or not?

Slightly Kwackers

Hi I know little about gardening and planted my spuds in containers with fresh seaweed earlier this year.
Most internet sites advised surface application with the odd one or two saying to dig it in.


The soil was sandy with some bags of compost added to darken the colour. I mixed the seaweed in.



Results were poor. I guess I should have left it above the soil?


Has anyone any comments please?


I have quite a bit of wood shaving based bedding that is fully saturated with duck effluent. Should I use this as a top dressing or can I mix it in?


I am not going for containers this time, the results were too poor compared to the odd few grown in the ground.


SK

looksee

I don't think we have too many duck keepers on the forum so you might be as well to do a google search. However my reaction would be that wood shavings would be a bit 'raw' as compost, though might well make good top dressing. The effluent should be good for the plants, I believe it is highly nutritious.

On the seaweed, I imagine fresh seaweed would be a bit salty, maybe using it as a top dressing left to rot down might work (going on the way the west of ireland's potato rows were created on rocky soil). Putting it into sandy soil fresh probably would not do much at all, but the salt would not help.

magicbastarder

Wood shavings would be high carbon low nitrogen, and duck ****e would be low C, high N so not a bad mix. As above, maybe better used as a mulch than a compost unless it's already rotted. If it's smelly, it's not rotted fully.

Slightly Kwackers

Many thanks for the replies.

On the seaweed front, to be honest most advice on the internet was to use it as a top dressing and wash the salt out. I followed the small minority.

Idleness and the desire to follow the easy option comes easy :-(

My thought with the sandy soil was that it might make it "gummy" and more like a regular compost.

Anyway I did throw a load of duck bedding onto the freshly rotovated patch a few weeks back and I notice that the wood shavings are separated and on the surface anyway. I have put the latest lot into the compost, so I guess if it is not rotted when I come to plant it will at least keep the weeds down if I throw it on top?

Hocus Focus

The duck manure you have acquired is probably still quite fresh. You would not use farmyard or horse manure until it is well rotted.
Your last option, of throwing it into the compost is what I would have suggested. The duck excrement will rot down and add nitrates, and the wood shavings will also decompose. The combination, including whatever is already in your garden compost will be well balanced and can eventually be dug in.