Garden And Gossip Forums

Does anybody put seaweed on their garden? My son lives on the coast and kelp is always being washed up, so perhaps an abubdant supply.  I should add the local authority are happy for people to take it.

I dont because i'm nowhere near the coast but apparently it is very useful?

I'm looking at using the reeds/weeds from the canal next year, when its cleaned they just dump them on the bank. I assume they are ok for compost heaps/mulch?

I use seaweed and it makes the soil very friable, it can go straight onto the soil as any water inside the seaweed is fresh water and any salt on the weed will be minimal I don't wash the seaweed before putting it on the soil and I also use it to make a seaweed feed by steeping it in a tub and the usual dilutions for home made feeds apply

Just to add I have been moving the soil from a bed which had flatworms in it, last year I put a lot of seaweed on this bed, something I had done the previous year as well, when moving the soil it looked in very good condition plus a fair number of worms present, I know flatworms can go into a dorment state till the earthworm population regenerates but as I have other beds with a good worm population, which I think any flatworms would migrate to, I have found them in a raised bed in the greehouse, I am of the opinion that seaweed controls them, I don't know if it kills them or that they just move somewhere else, but I have other three raised beds and a flower garden all with worms in them, so if you can 0ut lashings of seaweed on your garden

After posting the above, today I was emptying a rubble bag that I had filled several weeks ago and sadly I found a couple of flatworms, the bag also had several earth worms, so possible the flatworms are still somewhere in the garden and got into the bag while it was sitting, so it's a top priority to get some seaweed into the garden.

Collected 8 bags of seaweed today and straight on to the garden