New plot old lawn

[snohare]

Would it be ok added to the beds now as I won't be planting until the spring or should I just add it to the compost bin to rot down properly first?

Fresh chicken manure is very "hot"; how long it takes to "cool" depends on how moist it is, and how fresh. (Moist has more ammonia in it, which makes it a better fertiliser long term but too strong short term.) I'd expect that if you leave it on the ground you would find it cools between now and spring; the manure I take out of friends' chicken sheds is certainly usable in that time frame.
If you were going to use it in a compost heap, you would have to be careful to mix it correctly with other ingredients, but I'll bet it would make a wonderful pep-up for a dormant heap !
Better watch out for hemp seeds...not popular with Mr Plod !

AP, thank you for those tips, that's what I'll do. I don't have a water butt, so TS's idea is...ahem, dead in the water. Veggie...I have a posh (pink) camping chair already thank you. Although it would be an appropriate use for couch grass...

[veggiechicken]

Veggie...I have a posh (pink) camping chair already thank you. Although it would be an appropriate use for couch grass...
Ooh, how upmarket!
But you could recline on your couch on those balmy days of summer, sipping your G&T with a slice of your vintage lemons.

[taff]

Lovely idea, but the cardboard was there for that purpose. After a few months it has just about disintegrated, when I lift it up underneath is bone dry and seems to have invented a time warp that saves weeds from dying.
Planting into that would require a hammer and chisel, and nothing would outlast the voracious couch and dandelion roots anyway !
I've tried pouring water onto it, on the assumption that this would help rot the dying vegetation under the covering. Didn't seem to help.

you've got to leave it at least a year and a half before you use it, preferably two, if you have that much stuff in it.
I left mine about 18 months, there were still some quite firbrous roots in there, they came out and went on the compost heap. It was covered with tarp as well, not cardboard, which rots too soon

[Speed Gardener]

It depends on how much room you have and how much of a hurry you're in. I leave all my weeds in a big pile next to the compost pallet bins. After a couple of years, pull off the top stuff that's not yet rotted and you have a nice pile of lovely crumbly soil. All the couch grass, docks, dandelions and almost everything else has rotted down. The only things to look out for are bindweed roots, and these are easy enough to see, white on brown soil. The last time I dug the pile out I must have has 50 barrowfuls of soil, filled all the dips, levelled off the terraces and built up levels all over my plots.
I figure there are weed seeds eveywhere anyway so it won't be any worse than usual. In fact, after the first flush of weeds came up and were disposed of, there haven't been any more this year.
I also filled two barrels with weed and water over the winter and buried the foul-smelling lot in the spring, never to be seen again.

[Two_Sheds]

I don't have a water butt, so TS's idea is...ahem, dead in the water.

Black plastic sacks work too

[snohare]

Aha ! That's me sorted then. I will be more patient, remove some roots, cover it a bit better and drown said roots in black bags.
Shame about it taking 18 months, oh well, I will have to get going on stealing the local molehills...

[Aberdeenplotter]

molehills are really good though. Apparently the moles take the soil up from deep so it is weed free. Probably an old wiews tale.

[veggiechicken]

molehills are really good though. Apparently the moles take the soil up from deep so it is weed free. Probably an old wiews tale.

What is a "wiew"? Please translate.

[Aberdeenplotter]

whoops, it's someone a man gets married to when someone rearranges the keys on his keyboard

[veggiechicken]

You can rely on an old wiew to muddle up a man's life.

[snohare]

Am I allowed to make jokes about women running true to type ? Or a man who is keyed up ?

For the record, no it's not weed free. It always seems to have little bits of rhizome in it. Also a surprising number of small stones, quite the wee weightlifters they are.