when I was a little girl the neighbour used to collect seaweed. he used to hose it down and dig some in and then compost the rest. Don't know if that was the best thing to do with it.

I never knew about this until Goy taught me! I wash it in the little river that runs onto the beach, but if you haven't got one just put it on the ground somewhere and let the rain wash the salt off. I put it on a corner of the drive and then the salt doesn't get washed onto the soil.
You can spread it as an autumn mulch round shrubs just as it is, compost it or make liquid plant food by hanging it in a bag in water for a few weeks.
Had to laugh one day I was collecting and washing it and some visitors came over to ask me what I was doing - they thought I was going to eat it! (What, a whole sackful...?)

You can buy liquid seaweed from most garden centres. We used to use Maxicrop quite a lot but it wasn't supposed to be used as a fertilizer but as a tonic.

One good thing about it, when i used to feed the palm house in Brighton with it, the next morning, it would smell like a fishing harbour......lovely !!!!!

Thanks for useful info. My problem is lack of space and I don't have anywhere to make compost. So, I think the best thing will be to use it as it is in the autumn. However, water does run down on to the beach when there's significant rain-fall so I could rinse it in that before bagging it up. (No shortage of rain in Cumbria!)

look for calcified seaweed on the net and use that.....you know what you are getting with that.

You don't need much room for a compost - I use an old plastic dustbin with holes punched in the bottom and sat on the lawn in a corner - job done.

I would be inclined to wash off the salt. Then you can add it to your regular compost heap. You could let it dry in the sun and scrunch it up into small pieces and dig or hoe it into the garden. There are two types of seaweed meal which you can purchase; one is calcified seaweed which is dredged up from the sea bed and seaweed meal which is ordinary seaweed which is dried and made into a course powder. Both are useful, contain lots of trace elements but very expensive so if you can find the time, best to make your own.

Celia says she doesn't have room for a compost heap though. Washing it as well as you can and using it as a mulch will be fine. I would hesitate to keep it wet in bags after you get home as it would go extremely smelly very quickly.

Seaburngirl's story has the right of it - bring the stuff home, rinse it off well with a hosepipe, then add it straight to the ground, no need to compost. Just turn it into the top layer.

Thank you. Steragram's advice best fits my circumstances. The garden in question isn't at my own house (The Brown House in Maryport) but is attached to the Roman Catholic church just opposite our house. I don't belong to the church but am working to restore the long-neglected garden. Although it could be described as 'walled', the east-facing wall is only about a metre high so the wind whistles over it at a rate on knots. There are two sizeable lawns (surrounded by borders), which are used by the parishioners for events like garden parties and weddings, so there's a limit to how much re-designing I can do. I couldn't, for example, create a working area with compost bins. In the autumn I'll be scouring the beach for that seaweed!

Well done you - I bet the church people are very grateful for all your hard work. Good luck.