Buying compost in bulk can save you loads of money
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Cottage tales | 24 comments
Photo: Soil (copyriight Harrod Horticulture)
Every day, when it’s not raining or freezing, I spend an hour digging in the garden. Depending on how spritely I feel, I can usually dig a square metre. It is mind numbingly slow. Thank goodeness for my DAB sports radio which I bought to stop myself going mad when I was painting 38 Georgian windows and doors, inside and out. Four coats of paint outside three coats inside. Do the math!
The reason why the digging is taking so long is that many years ago a number of pig stys and outhouses were obviously bulldozed, covered with a layer of topsoil and laid to grass. This has led to a very bumpy lawn and a stone problem in the herbaceous garden.
Each square metre fills a builder’s barrow with bricks tiles and large chunks of flint. Don’t ask me what I’m going to do with the mountain of rubble! I have no master plan as yet. The soil is full of gravel. Any piece under 5 cm is allowed to stay – otherwise I could be riddling for years.
I’m hoping to excavate 25 square meters so I’ve been looking into ways of replacing the rubble with topsoil or compost. At the moment, the extended border is much lower than the lawn. I want pretty, plumped up, borders filled with flowers for the gate side stand.
I’ve discovered that if you buy topsoil or compost in bulk it is much, much cheaper than buying the bags from the garden centre. I was astonished by the difference in price of online suppliers – the cheapest that I’ve found is from Compost Direct – coming in at £50 for 750 litres and £58 for 1000 of their top black gold compost. Elsewhere I’ve seen both of these being offered for twice or three times the price.
If we buy this compost and top soil we can also make our own grow bags. I’m planning to buy some heavy duty refuse sacks to make deep and chunky grow bags for tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and cucurbits. These can sit in our sunny front garden and won’t dry out as quickly as the standard grow bags. Last Spring I was attracted by the chubby grow bags for sale in Homebase – but at £5 for a 50 litre bag, the price put me off.
We have to bulk up our extended herbaceous borders. But part of me is holding back.
I have some clients who bought a load of cheap compost and it was full of seeds that germinated and were a nightmare. Should I go to a top soil supplier in the UK – Harrod Horticulture has teamed up with Rowlawns and is cheaper than Rowlawns – or should I go the budget route which might be absolutely fine?
What do you think? I really need some sound advice please.
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Hello Bilbo
I will check out my local builder’s suppliers as I still have an account (lots of discount) from the decorating days. Thank you. I wouldn’t have thought of going down that route.
Hi Suky
I tried this one year with smallish pots and it worked very well. I picked up some large pots from the Homebase recycling pots area last week so will use these. Thanks for the nudge.
Hello Jackie
Thanks for this. I looked it up and we can get council compost but we need a trailer. Jalopy is off the road and D would draw the line at bags of compost in his company car! But am thinking of getting together with neighbours to buy a load.
Hi Mandi
Great idea (as always!). Will cast my nets on Freecycle.
Hi Sarah
Thanks for your advice. The newspaper trick sounds good and as it is a well drained border and would help it hold more moisture. Brilliant.
Hi Lucy
Yes I can see the wisdom behind your comment. I’ll go for a mix.
Hello Joanna
I k now what you mean. I’ve seen it for sale at the garden centre.
Hello Jon
Yep, point taken.
Hi Fi
Thanks very much for the suggestion. I think that we are just within the free delivery area. Their prices are good too.
Hi Fiano60
Good point – I’ll check that it is sterilised. Thanks.
Hi Bib
What a nightmare! I’ll definitely go down the sterilised route.
Hello Asproulla
Thank you for both of your suggestions. Great ideas.
Hi Barney
Thanks for the tip!
Poor you the sinking garden sounds a real problem.
Hi Cathy
Hail sister of the depths. I’m quite enjoying the digging!
Hi Nick
Good point. I’m going into town today so will ask.
Hi Cookie Girl
Yes you are right. The though of years of weeding has put me off going down the cheap and cheerful route.
Hello Paula
Poor you – the little plastic squares would drive me nuts.
An outdoor oven is a brilliant idea! No we don’t have one and I’d love one. I’ve even found free plans on the Internet. Thanks.
Hi John
I’ve always heard good reports of Madinley Mulch. There are several studs (horses) in the village so I will ask around re manure. Thanks – I wouldn’t have thought of that.
Hello Cottagegardenfarmer
I checked and our nearest depot is fifteen miles away. I don’t think that they deliver but I will give them a buzz. Thanks for the tips.
I don’t think this is so cheap if you’re in the market for bulk purchase. I buy my potting compost from the local Countrywide shop 3x 100 litre bags for £16 ie 5.3p a litre. The very cheapest I found for making new borders was from the local recycling centre in Wiltshire fill your own bag for £1 – 3p a litre or £40 for 1000litres delivered – 4p a litre. It’s called Warrior compost and produced to national standard PAS100 -I’ve had no probs with weeds in it.Maybe your local centre does something similar.
Regarding the rocks and rubble this would be ideal if you ever needed to build a soakaway/French-drain. just put them to one side and let the rain wash them until you have enough. You could also use them as the base of a really raised bed (i.e. 40cm down).
I’ve also used madingly mulch and found then OK (about £55 for 1000L) although if you have the space for easy delivery or a trailer I would imagine that you could get manure much cheaper than this from a farm/stable. then leave it under some plastic/carpet/membrane until autumn before digging it in to your potato bed!
Promise me that you won’t mulch with anything that even remotely resembles plastic. I have rotting black plastic all over the yard, which means that it’s breaking into little one-inch-square pieces which will be a delight to try to round up and throw out! I am trying really hard these days to not roundly curse the previous homeowner who, in the ways of gardening, was a bit of a moron.
I don’t have any salient suggestions for the compost, but RE: the rubble- I’d save it for building an outdoor oven, that’s for sure!! If you already have one of those, maybe for hardscaping some paths in your garden?
Ok, here’s the thing… How would you feel if you dig all this stuff in and then it start sprouting weeds !!! I know how I’d feel facing years (potentially..) of never-ending weeding. It’s just not worth the risk ..
£58 for 750 lts of compost isn’t cheap. Most garden centres have multi-bag offers on compost, pretty much all of which are cheaper than this. Ask you local centre to quote for delivering a pallet to you, you might be pleasantly surprised (and it will be easier to handle the bags than trying to barrow loads from a bulk bag).
Fiona! You and I are digging goddesses! I, too, am in the middle of an endless digging adventure. The rocks! No wonder our vegetables didn’t grow well in years past… so I’m digging up the garden, digging down 30 inches or more, ammending deeply, bringing in loads of compost (ordering more today). It’s soul-cleansing work, this digging. Every time I heave out a big rock, my spirit feels lighter, and I imagine easier growth ahead for all. Carry on, sister of the depths!
when we moved to our present house the end of the garden looked like an extention of the local tip,10ft high with rubbbish and brambles the previous owner had a strange fondness for bricks which even now after years we still dig up by the bucket load, my husband worked as a landscaper at the time and when he started to clear it we found an old victorian bottle tip, it could have taken forever to clear properly so he filled in the pit and turfed over it. now 10yrs on the garden has started to sink and is going to cost a lot of money to level (which brings me to my point)being someone in the know he always uses local independant suppliers who in the current market are willing to negotiate on delivery costs and would’nt dream of using a “chain” or the internet
I’m commenting from Cyprus (where I have a small organic fruit & veg business), so this answer may be irrelevant to the UK. I get goat manure by the truckload and dig it in well. Sometimes it has weed seeds, and the answer there is solarisation. The drawback to that is that you have lots of plastic to get rid of — and here it deteriorates very quickly. Another route to go is the sheet mulch route, a permaculture standby. For more complete instructions on either, Google both terms — there’s tons of info out there — even videos so that you can see technique… But I’d say buy in bulk every time.
Good luck! I really enjoy your blog. 🙂
When we moved into our last house the “soil” was pretty much as you describe yours Fiona, with the addition of loads of sheets of old paint that had been burned off the woodwork indoors and buried in the garden. We bought loads of manure, compost and topsoil, the cheapest we could find. And the topsoil turned out to be full of vine weevil. It took us years to get rid of them. If sterilised topsoil is on offer, I’d definitely go for that rather than any cheaper option.