I'd be tempted to use the compost bin stuff in the autumn and that will give it time to be incorporated into the soil. then in the early spring I'd use a scattering of pellets.
I use growmore instead of chicken pellets but they do the same thing.

I'd be interested to see what others recommend diane.

I would also use the compost in autumn but take the chicken pellets to the re-cycling centre. Because of the high nitrogen content they should be scattered so thinly that they have little nutritional value to the soil. I don't use them.

If the contents of your compost bin is well-rotted down, then it should be good enough and probably the best thing you can use on its own... The equivalent of feeding steak to a plant.

Adding chicken pellets to a well-maintained compost would be a waste and an overkill. So I wouldn't mix the chicken manure with your compost.

Keep the chicken pellets and feed your plants next growing season when the compost has been leached of its nutrients. Dig the pellets in well and the chicken manure will provide a slow release fertilizer for the next growing season

The added advantage of using chicken pellets instead of something like Growmore, is that it's organic.

I use chicken manure pellets quite a lot to feed my plants. The downside is that they tend to smell after a day or two in the soil, but the smell soon disappears. The up-side to me is two-fold. I'm getting rid of some sh*t and and also putting it to good use.

Pellets would be more beneficial for green leaves than for fruit and flowers though.

The NPK of average chicken manure pellets is 4-2-1, so not particularly high in nitrogen, but not a well balanced feed (Growmore, for instance is around 7-7-7). If you use them now, any nitrogen value they have will be dissipated by spring, but they will add to the humus content of the soil are, obviously, are organic. Bear in mind that chicken manure pellets should not be in contact with plant roots, stems or foliage because they're likely to burn them, so careful application is necessary around plants.

My preference is to use them when preparing ground, simply to feed the soil, not plants - if I want to feed plants directly, I'll use Growmore or Vitax Q4, or if wanting organic, fish blood and bone (NPK about 5-5.5-6.5) but keeping the soil in good condition means you don't need to use so much of these type of fertilisers.

Thank you good friends. I have printed this column up to
keep on file to refer to.
I take an interest in Archaeology these days. Have learned that where a patch of Nettles grow, that is where there was a reed thatched hut or round house 3,000 BC. The waste matter that went into the soil produced Nitrogen that remained all these years. Excavated matted material
found preserved in the Lias clay on a dig at the Somerset
Levels contained seeds of Nettles, Brambles, Dock,
Goosefoot and Henbane suggesting centuries of dry land
containing a rich source of Nitrogen preserved in the soil.
(This is where the floods were last year.)
To think I have been cursing Nettles for years. Really they are most interesting.

I heard about somebody who abandoned an old unproductive blackcurrant bush to the nettles. A few years later he happened to notice it and it was loaded with fruit! You can make good liquid plant food with nettles, and they are a food plant for a couple of species of butterfly. You can even make nettle soup which is supposed to be good for you if you can get anybody to drink it, which I couldn't!

Liquid Plant food from nettles! I might patent that idea Steragram ;o)

Diane, what your research has shown you is so interesting; seems to include geology and botany as well as archaeology. You must be dead chuffed at gaining knowledge about a specific place and forming conclusions from that.

I am writing a booklet about it. PM me for a copy in October if you are interested. So many people hate the thought of history because of the way we were taught the subject when young. I am trying to explain it in a different way.
Hoping to find others who feel the same and would like to
research and write it in the area where they live.
Pitkin Books print and market for free but have to be generalised over the whole country. A localised booklet has to be printed and sold locally to cover costs.
I think local history is worth recording. We have the
computers and reference libraries. Its just getting into the
mindset of people who lived locally 2,000 years ago.
They really were clever !

Go ahead Myron - I'm not totally mean...