Any organics used for mulch or worked into the soil will aid both clay and sandy soil. In clay, it loosens and helps drainage. In sand it aids water retention and helps hold the sand grains together.
I haul in copius amounts of horse manure, both fresh and aged (what ever I can get).
No leaves are burned or hauled away. They are shredded and allowed to stay in the lawn or spread in the rose beds. Weeds are composted and used as a top dressing. Grass clippings stay on the lawn.
We tend to throw away so much good stuff that would help our plants if allowed to stay and breakdown naturally.

A friend's horses donate horse manure.
A neighbor donates all his bagged grass clippings.
Pine needles and leaves from my back yard and everyone else's that blow in.
Alfalfa from the feed'n seed store.

I dug up areas to plant bulbs and pansies the other day and was so happy the soil is so easy to work and so rich looking. Yummy stuff.

Question: do you shred your leaves with a lawn mower or do you have a shredder?

Homemade compost. Coffee grounds from Peets or Starbux.

I wonder about commercial manures like cow and chicken...are they loaded with antibiotics, salts, and other chemicals? What those poor animals are fed is nowhere near "natural".

I shred my leaves with a B&D leaf hog, which is a vacuum type thing that doubles as a blower. The leaves end up like oatmeal. Mixed with grass clippings and coffee grounds, it makes prime compost. I get good leaves from the Cercis and Parthenocissus: they are thin and shatter easily.

Hoov, I read in a book that cow manure was a manure of choice years ago. I may be wrong but I think Patricia uses cow manure too.

Carla

I can get as much composted horse manure as I can haul from the university ag school's farm. Their herd is large enough to generate piles of sufficient size to permit hot composting, so there's no worry about viable grass and weed seeds. The manure I picked up from a small boarding stable a few years ago sowed pasture grass all over the place.

High quality grass clippings come from the local high school, which generates huge mountains of them almost weekly when they mow their extensive sports fields and green spaces. Quite a lot of teenager sweat has gone into my rose beds over the years. Clippings from my own lawn are left in place.

Coffee grounds come from our morning pot, but mostly from Starbucks.

Wood chips come from tree removal companies - occasionally. Their trucks range over a very wide area and it usually isn't convenient to bring the chips here, but if they're working close by, I can often score a truck load or two.

I haven't put leaves out for the city to pick up in probably 10 years. The city doesn't want leaves and clippings to be bagged, requiring instead that you leave a pile by the side of the road that their truck can pick up with a mechanical claw. Around this time of the year I keep an eye out for the truck when it comes through my neighborhood on Monday afternoons. And if I can catch him, I ask the driver to dump his load of leaves in my yard. He has always been more than happy to skip a trip back to the usual dumping site.

My shredder is my lawn mower.

Early this year was the first year I put down composted manure and mushroom compost. I think it makes a big difference.

I also started composting all my yard waste and have 5 large plastic bags of shredded and chipped rose canes, leaves and other stuff. I'm hoping it breaks down over the winter and I will use that in my beds.

Garden clippings composted with stable bedding
Grape pomace
Coffee grounds
Prunings I chip with the chipper
alfalfa hay chipped and soaked quickly
tree service chipper stuff

Alfalfa
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grass clippings
Mushroom compost
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Rosetone ( more alfalfa)
coffee grounds
Iron
Fish emulsion
sea weed extract
All in rotation through the season...along with commercial fertilizers and BAYER
KArl, people tell me I have copious manure all the time but I am not sure they mean in the garden ( :
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There is a local dairy farm about 20 miles away that has always had a nice pile of aged cow manure. I built many a bed with that stuff. But last year they wouldn't sell any. I'm afraid it's become too much of a commodity. I will call them again next spring.

I compost all veg. and fruit scraps, plus coffee grounds and eggshells. My neighbor contributes their food scraps as well to my pile. But I never have enough homedmade compost. When I first started gardening here I tried to get as many compost piles going as I could and turned them often. Then I found I was spending too much time in the garden and didn't have time to "maintain" so many piles.

We don't have "mushroom compost" around here, but we do have "seafood compost". There are a few facilities that take the waste from the lobster and fishing industry and compost it. Very good stuff, you can see tiny bits of shells in it. I had 12 yards delivered last year when I was building the rose garden.

One fall I went to one of the coves where seaweed collects. I hauled as much as I could in trash bags in my trunk. Not a good idea as the bags leaked. I have to know when to draw the line for my garden. Standing on slippery rocks in waist-high water pulling up slimy seaweed, then having a car that smelled like the marsh on a hot day was above and beyond the call of duty.

If I don't have a finished pile of compost or manure to dig from, I will buy those bags (20 lbs?) of "composted cow manure" from Walmart or Home Depot. 1/2 to 1 bag worked in to each rose hole.

Probably the best thing I do is mulch with finely shredded leaves. You can scrape back the mulch and uncover dozens of worms per sq. ft. everywhere in my garden. It is a lot of work each fall, as we have to collect at least 100 bags of leaves and shred them with the riding mower, then rake them up again and haul them throughout the garden. It takes a good 2 weekends.

I shred my leaves with the mulching blades on my garden tractor. In the summer, rose clippings and deadheaded flowers are tossed and the lawn and run over with the garden tractor.
At this time of the year there is a pall of smoke hanging over our area from burning leaves. Every one contributes except me.
My neighbors can't get over that all my leaves can be shredded down into such little pieces and stay in the lawn and rose beds.

Hay. Hay, hay, and more hay.

I keep every bit of organic matter that our household and land produce and recycle them into the land. Leaf fall is a happy time around here. I can't chip anything, so last year I piled all my rose prunings in one barren spot and covered them with hay to let them decompose and improve the ground. I need a new barren spot this year. I also get coffee grounds from one local bar; wish I had truckloads of the stuff.

Our ground is so poor in organic matter and the garden is so large that making the transforming the clay into good fertile soil is a gigantic task. I can't say how much I'm looking forward to the plants themselves maturing to the point that their leaves and prunings make a significant contribution to enriching the ground.

Melissa

Yes but years ago, cows ate grass and were not treated with hormone shots and constant antibiotics. Now they are treated with growth hormones and antibiotics whether they are sick or not, and eat processed leftover sheep guts from sheep who also received hormone shots and constant antibiotics, or alfalfa hay treated with a lot of pestides. Their food is also heavily salted because it adds water weight to their bodies so they sell for more at market time.

Just something to think about--manure isn't what it used to be.

You're right Cass about all the shots and such. I have a personal source for both horse and cow but I've never used it, three dogs would get in trouble.

Carla

Hoov, lucky for me the local dairy farm is a small operation where the cows graze and the milk is organic and hormone-free. And I've never had a problem with weed seeds in it.

I just hope they don't start a side business like so many other farms, etc. out here and start bagging their manure in small bags and selling it at exhorbitant prices to yuppies.