We hired a 3 ton digger the other day for tidying up around the place.
Number 1 son drove it and he does have a digger drivers ticket after all.
I'm still a old soil slave school with my pike, trusty Azada hoe,wheelbarrow and shovel kind of gardener/smallholder. A pair or couple of pairs of gloves might be useful too. Remember my disposable gloves under the work gloves tip?
I asked number 1 son to tidy up "Scruffy Corner" for me. This is an area of the veg plot where I dump fym and weeds and let it decompose naturally. Well that's the idea anyway.
The photo took him about ten minutes to make this enormous pile for me.
If it ever dries up I will spend many a happy hour piking and topping up my raised beds and containers, plant pots for my perennials and shrubs and filling up the potato 🥔 growing bags. Yes there will be weeds. But: "If weeds will grow anything will grow"
I was going to start today but my back is aching with the cold after all the hard graft mucking out.., this weekend.
I could do with a tarpaulin to cover up my giant pile of black gold.
Is anyone else making compost and filling their raised beds and containers for spring?
I have been pricing bulk loads of spent mushroom compost. It's not cheap and there's an haulage charge to wild West Cork.
So I will make my own compost instead.
The best thing is it's cost me nothing apart from a broken back when I start forking and shovelling the black gold. I will happy as a pig in mud/muck. That's an English colloquial saying for you dear readers!
Anyone getting their veg plot prepared for the growing season?
Are there any stables near you to collect and bag well rotted stable manure or fym? Get some pig ration or fertilizer bags and get filling them and you will have "muck and magic in the veg plot.
See you tomorrow.
That is a great photo. The light and colour just shouts Winter to me.
ReplyDeleteIt's a good pile of muck too. Just right for your rhubarb.
Thanks JayCee. It's save me a lot of work and the temperatures are suppose to rise to 12 degrees at the weekend. So I can start filling wheelbarrows and builders buckets full of black gold for the veggies and shrubs and perennials. I might go seaweed collecting again soon. The veggies love it.
ReplyDeleteI used to get free bags of manure from some local stables and brought it home in my car. It was the exact opposite of air fresheners. My wife would tell me that I smelt like shit*.
ReplyDelete*please excuse my coarse language Dave.
Country smells YP. I call it farm 🚜 yard manure or fym for short. Trailers are a must or a strong nose when transporting it. If fym is full of worms you know it's well rotten. If it's very smelly it's probably still fresh and needs to be covered up for a few months. I am a connoisseur.
ReplyDeleteAs soon as the snow melts off, we can think about it. Right now, it is too cold for digging pretty much anything. The fym is frozen into one solid heap. The ground is under a foot of snow. I'm not sure that is going to change any time soon.
ReplyDeleteSnow and ice actually improves the flavours of overwintering vegetables like leeks and parsnips Debby. They turn the starches into sugar. I made some leek and potato soup and J baked a Irish soda bread. Itsmelled and tasted delicious.
ReplyDeleteI can't use the backyard compost pile anymore. The weeds are so high I can't see the path. Not my jurisdiction. A young Albanian will come and clean before Easter with his trusty hoe.
ReplyDeleteNow in the front yard, my place! The clover is growing high, but not the nasturtiums this year. I'm using my raised bed for compost. I make a or trench in the soil and dig in leftover Greek salad and the like. I wonder if my tomatoes will appreciate it this summer.
If you could get your Albanian to cut or strim and make you some raised beds and fill them with weeds and nasturtiums in the bottom then top them up with the compost and cover them up for a couple of months with plastic. You will be ready for planting Linda.
DeleteI like it when the muck heap starts steaming in the morning sun in the middle of winter. Sugar beet tops were also heaped up for the cows and would steam in the sun. Well in fact anything outside on the farm with vegetation in a heap would steam in winter sun. The sugar beet heaps also steam. I am sure you wanted to know all that Dave! Thanks for the post, at least it set me thinking and reminiscing.
ReplyDeleteGreat farming memories Rachel. Very Seamus Heaney like. I am sure there is a poem or a essay there for you Rachel. It's thick with frost here.
ReplyDeleteYes you're right Dave. Thanks for the prompt. I need some good material to write about.
DeleteI have said it before Rachel. You should write " Rachel's Farm". A Norfolk memoir full of recollections, poetry and art. I am sure it could be incorporated into your degree?
ReplyDelete