Water butt dregs

steveTu

I'm basically useless. I was linking three water butts (two completely empty, and the biggest, still nearly full) and whilst drilling a hole in the biggest, the hole cutting tool came out of the drill (I obviously hadn't tightened the chuck that well). The whole bit fell to the bottom of the nearly full butt. OK - I emptied the full butt into the empty ones and there was a sludge probably two to three inches deep at the bottom of the butt.

So now the question - given that I'd emptied the butt, it seemed stupid leaving the sludge in there and it covered the drill bit anyway, so I either had to feel my way through it or empty it out. I emptied it on a lesser used bit of a border - it looked pretty good - a  bit like what I would imagine the Nile floods to look like. Will it be of any use or will it kill that patch like nuclear waste? If someone else actually uses this stuff I may make it a regular thing and use it on other parts of the garden that have poor'ish soil.

Pete.8

It's great stuff - full of bacteria and goodness that will be broken down by soil.
I used to put the vacuuming from my large tropical fish tak on one part of the garden everything thrived there.
I also pout butt sludge (?!) onto the veg patch - seems particularly good for leafy veg

steveTu

Thanks Pete - that's an incentive to clean the sludge out every few years. I'll start a rota!

B3

Butt sludge sounds disgusting. 

JennyJ

I usually tip it out onto the grass, leave it to dry and then brush it in.

steveTu

@B3

That's just butt'ist. You take a completely innocent phrase and turn it into a thing of nightmares. I won't be able to sleep tonight for fear of dreaming of that monster in Dogma.

Mind you, the thought of sifting through the sludge for my bit did make me gag - hence the quick decision to dump the sludge somewhere.

Pete.8

If it was an American forum I'd have been banned! 😂

Glad you retrieved your smelly bit from it Steve