New Compost Delivery Arrives

Friday was another sunny day so down to the plot in the afternoon. Knowing I’ve got another load, well half a load, of compost arriving tomorrow the first order of business was to move the pile from the top end of plot 5 to the actual plot. I decided to spread it quite thickly, about six inches deep and I’ll rotovate it in next week.

It didn’t cover all the area I wanted but I’d cleared the pile from behind the shed. I then sowed a row of peas and cloched them. Talking of peas, the ones I planted in a length of guttering in the greenhouse are starting to show. The germination rate doesn’t  seem brilliant, between 30% and 50%, but more may show soon and the seeds were two years past the use by on the packet.

It does go to show that old seeds are often worth trying as long as you have time to re-sow if they fail. I have some information on the site about the lifespan of seeds.

An old friend showed up at the plot (well actually he’s a young friend) so went home since he finds gardening about as exciting as watching paint dry.

Compost Arrives

The first deliveries came on Friday late afternoon and then the rest on Saturday so when I arrived on the site on Saturday my half load, about 31/2 tonnes was sitting in front of the plot.

Apparently the couple who had the other half of the load had shifted all theirs already onto their plot. I think having two people makes the job go faster, not to mention them being slightly younger and fitter than me!

Some posh people seemed to have drafted gangs of young labourers onto the job and were moving their compost the easy way, directing them where to move it too. Jealous? Moi?

Well about ten barrow loads went straight onto plot 5, finishing off the area I wanted to cover and it was back home for a break. A welcome cup of tea later, I loaded the 75 pots of sweetcorn into the car and back to the plot. They went into the coldframe by the shed on plot 5 and it was back to moving the compost.

The wagon turned up and dropped a half load for my neighbour just behind my load so a bit of a delay but that was it., back to the fray. First I earthed up the potatoes in the deep bed coldframe and then a couple of barrow loads topped up the beds in the big greenhouse.

Next was to start barrowing compost onto the big bed on plot 29. I think about 30 barrow loads went on, which will improve it no end when I rotovate it in.

All this humping compost around was pretty tiring so I took a couple of breaks and planted up six late germinating broad beans on plot 5 and one on plot29. I also watered everything well as we’re away tomorrow and I don’t want the seedlings drying out.

The Compost Pile Reduced

By the end of the day, I think I’ve moved about half of the load, maybe a bit more. It’s difficult to tell from this photo because the load for my neighbour is sitting behind my load now so it looks as if it’s grown rather than shrunk. Incidentally, you can see all my photos in the gallery. They’re in thumbnail format which pop up for the large version.

As I write this, my back isn’t feeling too bad although I am a bit tired to say the least. The strange pain in my foot is probably a bit of sciatica that comes and goes at times.