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01/16/2006
Two tons of compost
Well, a nice warm weekend (for January, anyway), so managed to get quite a bit done in the garden. Lot of help from the boys, too. Very nice to have them singing away while doing their little jobs and they actually did some useful jobs without much supervision and only a modicum of bribery, in the form of wheelbarrow rides.
First task was to cut down the asparagus and remove all the weeds from it. Should really have done this in autumn. Stuck the old fronds on the compost heap and applied compost to the bed as a mulch. Did the same to the Korean Chrysanthemums. Not sure if I'll keep these. They look nice enough in the veg patch and give nice cut flowers, but maybe it's time for a change.
I then dug over 4 beds and incorporated a load of manure and compost - also applied this to the other empty veg beds. The manure was horse manure from over 12 months ago which was already well rotted when I put it on the compost heap, so now very well rotted. Lovely compost. Anyway, over the course of the morning, pretty much emptied one of the compost bins - that's a volume of 6x6x5 ft, so a fair amount of material. Then forked the contents of the other bins into the empty space - so giving it a good mix. Should be ready to use by late spring, I'd have thought. No hedgehogs hiding anywhere - maybe they've slept somewhere else this year, or maybe they'd noticed it was warm and gone for a wander? There were hundreds of ladybirds everywhere, though. Hope the frost doesn't get too many of them.
Anyway, with all that digging and soil moving, reckon I'll be a bit stiff in the week! Couple of tons, by a very conservative estimate..
Allowed the boys to use the (not too sharp) secateurs to prune the ivy hedge at the bottom of the veg patch. They did a good job and meticulously tidied up all the prunings into one of the small compost bins.
We then got to work on the fruit cage. One of Jamie's friends damaged the roof by whacking it, so I'll need to fix that. We cut down all the fruited raspberry canes (shamefully late) and tied in the new growth. Pulled up plenty of weeds and had a bit of trim for the blackcurrant. Put the remains of last years Zinnias and brassicas that were in the cage onto the compost heap. Then got started on the strawberries - trimming off the old growth (much too late - should've been done after fruiting last year). Potted up a dozen runners, in case anyone we know wants some strawberry plants.
Still quite a bit to do in the fruit cage - various repairs to the wood and netting needed. Need to finish tying in the raspberries and still a lot of strawberry runners to pot up, or throw away. I noticed bindweed roots in there, too, so will have to keep an eye on that. Need to feed/mulch the actual fruit and put some more bark down on the paths.
We picked some parsnips, leeks and sprouts (plus a few old potatoes that Alexander found) and had those for Sunday lunch.
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