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 be 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.
ReplyDeleteWe will be creating a new garden from scratch. The 'old' garden had become increasingly less productive. Some sort of blight. Knowing a bit of your country's history, I realize you deal with it on that side of the pond too. Have you ever dealt with it personally? How do you treat?
DeleteHi Debby. I have known people experiencing similar gardening problems when taking on old gardens and allotments. Blight did play havoc to the potatoes in Ireland and led to the Great Famine in the 1840s. American Author Larry Zuckerman wrote: The Potato. It charts the humble potatoes journey from the Andes to Europe, America and even chip shops in northwest England.
DeleteThere are blight resistant potatoes like Sarpo Mira from Hungry. I have grown Orla potatoes which originate in Scotland and are said to have blight resistance. I personally only grow early potatoes and don't grow main crop potatoes. You can spray chemically or organic products for blight. I strim any of the potato haul that looks to have blight. I never compost this blighted vegetation. Do some research Debby and find out what vegetables are most suitable to your area. I would recommend the Larry Zuckerman Potato book though. Good reading.
It isn't just potatoes. It is tomatoes. Peppers. Some melons. There are suggestions to add copper to the soil but we were concerned about the creek and wetlands. We just decided to build raised beds, do a thick layer of card board, topped by compost and trucked in top soil. After the growing season, we will tarp off with black plastic to allow the sun and heat to naturally kill offany blight spores before the next growing season.
DeleteTomatoes and potatoes are cousins Debby. If you want to be really safe buy some really good shop bought compost to top the beds and sow seeds into. Tarping off sounds very logical. Good crop rotation is also important. I have been growing vegetables for over thirty years in various locations and like life it is always one kick forwards one kick backwards in my experience. I harvested some leeks today to make some potato and leek soup. I was not impressed with vegetables appearance. But gosh didn't they taste good Debby. Can't wait to watch the progress in your new garden on your blog. Celery is a marsh plant traditionally so it should thrive close to the wetlands.
DeleteI 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.
DeleteSounds easy. That back yard is also full of Ks 'finds'. I don't want to even look at it. But the front yard is tidy, junk free and full of greenery. I'm very happy. This spring I shall make a decent garden
DeleteCan you not get K to write another blog on your site called Ks 'finds' Linda? He takes me back to my allotment days in England and North Wales when we repurposed so much like concrete lumps to hold corrugated sheeting down and supermarket shopping trolleys to dry onions in. I hope you post lots of pictures of your lovely gardens in Poros. Greece is definitely on my bucket list.
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?
ReplyDeleteRight again Dave. I think my final paper will be a kind of memoir of the farm written as poems. A bit me and a bit Seamus Heaney. Thanks for your help, I always appreciate it.
DeleteI am a writer myself Rachel. I know the frustration of rejection and the depression which goes with the artistic process. My friend who is a doctor of literature and philosophy says I have enough written work which is good enough to be accepted on a Bachelor of Arts course but I can't afford to approach them at the moment. I am currently working on two more books. One a farming humorous book set in West Cork and a gardening book. Writing blogs most days gives us the muse. I hope you include some of your art work into your work Rachel? Anyone know of a good illustrator or a book publisher who might be interested?
ReplyDeleteI have to add my vote for Rachel's artwork too!!
DeleteKeep writing Dave. I know the rejections too and they are depressing. Sometimes I just think I am doing it all for myself. I did include some art in one of my papers of poetry last year and I will include some more in the final paper. Thanks.
DeleteThanks Rachel. I am reluctant to send anything humour based these days because unscrupulous publishers may borrow your work and rewrite in some one of their own writers books. If you keep your work solely restricted to your thesis, no one can pinch it. Rejection causes artistic burn out and depression. Will your thesis be published Rachel? If so put me down for a book or three.
DeleteThat's two fans Linda of Rachel's work Linda!
ReplyDeleteThanks Dave and Linda. I wrote a Heaney type poem after your earlier comment. It was about my brother after milking and feeding the cows. I will have to keep it under wraps for now. But you really did help me.
DeleteWonderful Rachel. You can at least show us the odd drawing or poem please? Glad we have inspired you.
DeleteYour poor back, Dave! The work never stops on a smallholding, does it? I love the smell of horse manure - not so keen on the omnivore dung!
ReplyDeleteI don't mind when it's not raining or blowing a gale Janice. I do love my smelly animals and vegetables and plants. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteThe green manure is protecting the garden soil..and weather permitting I'll be preparing the beds in March
ReplyDeleteGreen manures are very good GZ. I have grown mustard before and strimmed it down and dug it in. Mustard is very good in land that was down to grass like pasture. Wireworm hate it. Hope you're enjoying young trip. Thanks Gz.
ReplyDelete