Dubdug rising - a new project

A few weeks ago I was contacted by a fellow Master Composter to see if I was willing to help out a friend with her allotment.
This friend has been experiencing back problems for the past couple of years and as a consequence, she has lost control of her plot, and needs some help to get it back in order.
I agreed to meet up with her to take a look and initially I was shocked at how overgrown the allotment is.

When I looked a bit closer though, I could see that under the bindweed, there is the bones of a really great allotment plot. My friend had experimented with straw bale cultivation, and I find that really exciting. The bales that are currently there need replacing, but they give a really interesting dynamic to the allotment.

My approach will be to break down the plot into task sized chunks. It is all too easy to look at the whole thing (the 'big picture') and to feel overwhelmed, so just tackling a single area at a time is something that works well for me. I started with the strawberry bed, it was so overgrown that you couldn't even see the globe artichokes over the bindweed that was strangling them.

I've now moved on to the area around the straw bales covering the ground with thick layers of cardboard. I really want to try to get the plot under control using 'no dig' methods. I want to help to create a plot that is as back friendly as possible.

My friend had also used some amazing large industrial sink type things to create really interesting planters. She'd planted them up with a range of mints. I've now weeded round them (they were full of docks) and planted an empty one up with some winter lettuce and an old rosemary plant I found feeling very sorry for itself in a pot.

So, I'm facing a new challenge whilst also managing my own garden, my daughter's garden and doing the final year of my OU degree. Oh yes, and I work full time in a demanding job....Work/life balance hey?

Green waste collection

Along with most Local Authorities, the County Council in Suffolk is having to make some difficult decisions about funding. One of the outcomes of the recent budget setting was to cease a subsidy for green waste collections. Whilst my own Borough council has taken the decision to continue to provide this service free of charge, some of the other second tier councils have felt that they need to introduce a charge, and one was charging already.
This decision along with the visit to the green waste processing plant when doing my Master Composter training has focused my thoughts on this subject. On one hand it can be argued that the collection of green waste by Local Authorities makes it easy for people not to have to think about home composting, and on the other that this service means that people who would otherwise have put green waste in their household waste bin are now involved in composting, albeit on an industrial scale.
There is variation between councils as to what can be put in the brown/green bin. Where my daughter lives all food waste and garden waste can be disposed of in the brown bin. This is because the plant where the waste is processed uses extremely high temperatures to help the composting process. My council will collect garden waste and raw vegetable waste and clean natural animal bedding, but cooked food and bread can not be included.
Over the past year or so I have been increasingly aware of the food that we waste. I never used to give it much thought, because nearly everything went into the compost bin, but I now think that if we do not start with the first R: Reduce, and put all our energies into the second two: Reuse and Recycle, then we are missing out on addressing the key issue of our over-consumption. I do think that the ready ability of green waste collection to collect some or all of our food waste could appease our conciences without making us think about why we are generating the waste in the first place. Home composting could be said to increase our awareness by keeping the recycling of our waste extremely close to home - in our own back yards in most cases.
One of the shocking things about the visit to the municipal green waste collection depot was just what ends up in the brown/green bins - most significantly a huge amount of plastic. The team at the plant do their best to pull most of this out, but inevitably some finishes up in the end product, and is effectively shredded down so  much that it becomes invisible. It would certainly make me think again about buying any of the soil improver to use anywhere where I was going to grow anything that would be eaten.
So the question I have been asking myself is "should I stop using my brown bin?" and instead home compost 100% of the green waste  that we produce. As a household of vegetarians with a mainly dairy free diet, I must admit that I have never had any problems home composting our cooked food waste as well as any peelings etc. However, our garden is modest in size and it is the woody prunings that I would find the most challengeing to manage in my home composting system.

This morning I pruned back an extremely overgrown and thorny rose bush and a beech hedge that had not been pruned for the last two or three years. Whilst I keep the chunky stems back to use for stakes, and some of the sturdier bits to use as pea sticks, some of the whippy growth I put in the brown bin. If I'd had a garden shredder to hand, I would have shredded a large proportion of this, and would have then used it as a mulch or added it to the compost bin. This, I think is the main advantage of the large scale collection and composting  that Council collections enable. Where we do not have the capacity to Reduce and Reuse, and we cannot Recycle the bulkier waste at home, then our Local Authorities have a role in helping us to still avoid landfill or driving to a local waste site. In Suffolk all household waste that is collected is now incinerated to rpoduce energy, but apparently the inclusion of food and green waste impairs the efficiency of the operation.

My thorny and woody prunings in the brown bin

Master Composter

One of the things that I have done during my time off from blogging is to qualify as a Master Composter. Where I live in Suffolk, this is a joint venture between Garden Organic and the County Council.
I had to do a very enjoyable two day course, and then have to commit a minimum of 30 hours to promoting the benefits of home composting in the County. So far I have done some 1-1 sessions with friends and staffed stalls at County Council HQ, the Suffolk Show and Folk East festival.
I have decided to use this blog to also publish some reviews of different home composting systems based on my own experience of using them at home and with other projects.
I stress the fact that my reports will be from my own experience, and anecdotes provided by other people - it may well be that you would have a totally different experience of the same equipment.

Basically organic matter will, over time, break down to form what we would all recognise as compost. If you were just to pile organic waste in a corner it would eventually form compost. However most of us use a recepticle of some kind to help us with this process, if only to keep things neat.
 In my reasonable small urban garden I used to have two wooden bins and when these eventually rotted away, I replaced them after much research, with the Earth Maker plastic compost system.

The idea is that it is a three part system and that you move the organic matter through at different stages. This works well in theory, but the bin itself is rather fiddly to use. Between stages one and twowhere there is a slot in the picture above, there should be a pull-out section which seperates the two areas. What I found is that it is impossible to get this back in once you have any amount ofmatter in the bin. I have now removed this, so the rotting matter drops through into the second section as I fill the top area.

It is then even more awkward to move the partially rotted compost down to the bottom section. You have to remove the front cover and use the tool provided to push through the hole shown above which is about the width of a fairly small arm. Because of the height of this hole I have to almost lie flat on the ground to do this (as I don't bend very easily).
However, despite the challenges that there are with this bin it does seem to work extremely well, and the end result is genuinely some of the best compost I have made.  It is fine and crumbly and very soil like. This may partially be down to my improved knowledge about getting the 'mix' right, but I do think that the bin system may also play a part.

End-stage compost

The bin seems really healthy and the red compost worms have no trouble finding their way into the top section to start their work. It is not rodent proof, but you could try putting some narrow guage wire on the bottom if this were an issue. Personally, I don't mind providing a home for a few mice and they keep the compost well aerated. One of my cats will also indulge in a spot of occasional population control. I will provide some tips on dealing with rodents in compost bins in later postings as this does seem to be one of the most frequently asked questions when we are doing stalls.

In conclusion, my experience is that the Earth Maker provides good results, but needs some re-design to make it more user-friendly. It is useful in a small space, but is not the cheapest option available.

Renewal

I've been absent from this blog for a long time and there have been some changes over those couple of years. Due to being far too busy at work, ill health, caring responsibilities and then an unexpected inheritance of a second garden, I sadly had to give up the allotment last year. It was a really hard decision, but I knew that it was the right thing to do. Time (or lack of it) was always going to be my enemy.
We spent the autumn last year clearing and renovating the property that came with the inherited garden, and so now is the time to start the work on clearing and bringing into productivity, a beautiful yet much neglected space.
So Dubdug is now about a new project with a few challenges and surprises thrown in.

Lasagna composting

Along with most people, 2012 was a real wash out for my garden and allotment. Apart from a great garlic crop (which we are still getting through) and good autumn fruiting raspberries, everything else was either washed out or munched to oblivion by slugs and snails.
After the long and cold winter that we've just had, I am really looking forward to the coming growing year with a renewed enthusiasm. My greenhouse is full of seedling trays, to such an extent that I'm having to come up with creative ways of finding more space in there.
Last autumn we gave away some bikes to a couple of friends, who in return offered to make me some new raised beds at the allotment. This was done a couple of weeks ago. They're great and double height to minimise the amount of bending that I have to do.
I've always had the aim of getting to a 'no dig' system at the allotment which is what I have at home, but the pernicious weed problem has so far prevented this. We have a significant amount of mares' tail and bindweed as well as the other usual suspects (couch grass and dock). However, I was inspired by a talk given by Alys Fowler that I attended this week to give lasagna composting a go in my new beds. She used in it her back garden and effectively has eradicated mares' tail from her growing areas. This method involves gradually building up in layers and letting nature take care of developing a healthy balanced soil over time.
I've done a bit of research on the web and from a few, mainly American, sites have I think got an idea of how to do it. What I have realised after starting today is that this method takes a remarkable amount of material and I can tell that I will need to reserve my green waste over the next few weeks for this alone, rather than putting it out on the compost heap.
The bed that I've started on is 8' x 4' and is 12" deep, sitting on top of an existing 6" raised bed. I started off my trampling over the existing green growth in the bed, and then added a layer of newspaper (4-5 sheets thick) which I watered well.

I then added a layer of partially decomposed leaf mould

then some green waste

then another layer of wet paper and finally some well rotted compost and manure.

As you can see, I have got about half way up the bed so am anticipating that I am going to have to repeat all the layers again plus keep topping up as it settles.
I am hoping that I will be able to grow courgettes and squash in there this year and have a bed that is ready for full use by next spring.

Bite sized chunks

I woke up this morning in a weird mood. This doesn't happen to me very often thankfully, but when the  black dog does start to descend on me, I have to take my self off and do something - usually involving dirt and plants. So this morning I went down to the allotment at about 7.30am. At first I was filled with panic, it was so overgrown. All I could see was a jungle of weeds (and our allotment plot is a who's who of pernicious weeds), and what few crops that were remaining had been attacked by slugs and snails. I know that when I get that 'this is too much to cope with feeling' I need to take it a bit at a time and not look beyond the bit that I am working on, so I started harvesting and digging up the last of the broad beans and starting my counter attack from there.
It got me thinking about what a useful approach this can be in other situations that feel overwhelming because there seems to be so much to do. It's a tactic I should use more at work. There are times when my 'to do' lists become the problem rather than the solution, if like the allotment this morning, I look at the whole thing rather than taking each bit at a time.
So I got some digging done, harvested my paltry potato crop and started planning in my head for next year. This year's rain and slug and snail problem has literally washed out all my aspirations. However just as I was leaving today, I looked at my autumn fruiting raspberry canes - which are flourishing with hundreds of fruits coming on. My default positivity was restored and I went home to cook a masterly veggie breakfast.

Where there is disorder..

Thank you to Nigel for giving up a few hours yesterday to help me get on top of the allotment, which had been rapidly spiralling into oblivion under couch grass. This had been caused by a combination of adverse weather, health and the great growing conditions for weeds.
Now, a few metres of strummer wire and pulled muscles later, I feel back on top of things.

A smile of thanks for Nigel because I know that there are many things that he would rather have been doing yesterday.

Good use being made of all the old 'Advisernet' CDs we found when we moved office a couple of weeks ago. The pigeons had been at my peas.

The autumn planted garlic, onions and shallots are doing well.

The wet, muddy and aching look - what a style guru I am!

'Twas a cold & frosty morn

I got to the allotment today for the first time in many weeks - having been held back by firstly a trapped nerve in my arm, and then a chest infection.
It was a beautiful crisp and clear morning and luckily the allotment had not suffered too much for my absence. Yes, I've got some weeding to catch up on, but the autumn planted garlic and onions are coming up well. The kale has done really well, and doesn't seem to have objected to the recent neglect, so I'm looking forward to some of that for tonight's meal.

I'm itching to get going again now. I have seed potatoes to chit and seeds to organise, and some to start planting over the next few weeks.

Catching up

The last year has been really madly busy and, cliched as it is, I just do not know where the time has gone. I will attempt a quick summary:

• Callie & Alfie have been living back in Ipswich for a year now which is wonderful. They are only five minutes away so we usually meet up at weekends.
• Work is monstrously busy - more work, effectively less pay. A familiar tale I am sure.
• We managed to get away twice this year, firstly to Salthouse, Norfolk at Easter, and then a surprisingly great summer holiday in Lincolnshire. Miles & miles of sand and no one around.
• Allotment had a productive year but suffered from the low priority it got in my time management. I am resolving to improve this next year. I have already planted onions, shallots and garlic and have over wintering peas and broad beans to put in next weekend.
• The animals are all well & healthy although Timmy is charging around scared by fireworks as I write this.
• I got a distinction in my first OU module which I was incredibly happy about. It has given me impetus to carry on my studies.
• We had a weekend in London with our good friends Sarah & Ken. We went to the V&A and Kew gardens and topped it all off seeing Lou Reed at Hammersmith Apollo. A lovely weekend of culture (and wine).
• All my projects have also been a little side lined by everything else, but I managed to complete a really fab knitted snood and my 2011 chutney (extremely spicy carrot) has been going down a treat. I am struggling to keep up with all the demand, but am keeping on top of it due to a seemingly never ending carrot glut.

I have just had a week off work and spent it in Walberswick where I was helping Nigel's Aunt to deal with some of his late Uncle's possessions. Whilst I was kept very busy during the day, it was fantastic to have the chance to walk the dog along the beach every morning. It has reinforced our plans to move to the coast one day - having been born only about 50m from the sea, I always feel like I have come home when I am on the beach.

Badest blogger

I have probably been the world's worst blogger over the last few months so now resolve to update this poor neglected blog over the weekend.
My excuses are the usual - life, the universe and everything getting in the way and demanding of my priorities.
Luckily my allotment is nowhere near as neglected and I'll give an update on my promised blog post.
See you tomorrow!

Planting

Today had just a hint of things to come. The level of light seemed to have increased, it was milder than it has been over the last couple of days and when we went for a walk this afternoon I saw my first snowdrops of 2011 and the birds were chattering away in the trees - heralding the spring to come. However as was said on Gardeners' Question Time this afternoon "there's a lot of weather to come before spring gets here".
I spent this morning clearing out the greenhouse to make room for some planting, and planted broad beans, tomatoes (four varieties), cucumbers. aubergines and  chillis. Outside I put in some spring onion sets and a crown of rhubarb. It felt good to actually be doing something, though after a recent bought of flu my energy levels were somewhat sapped by the end of the morning.
I've left the greenhouse shut up snug and warm with the paraffin heater on low. I must remember to keep checking in there over the next few weeks.
I've also made myself a mental plan of what to do at the allotment this year. Last year was my first full year of growing there and I have learned a lot from it. It's also been illuminating to find out what we've used and what we haven't and how I can make better use of the space. I know that I need to get much better at successional planting of things like peas and beans to avoid being stuck with a glut all at once. Having drowned in courgettes my first year, I didn't really keep on top of them last year and should have planted more.
I should now stop reflecting on all things dubdug and get on with my OU essay that has to be in by Thursday..oh well...

'Twas a cold and frosty morning

We woke up to a beautiful winter's day : clear skies and a magical covering of frost. I wrapped up warm and took myself down to the allotment. Not surprisingly I was the only person there.
I thought that the ground might be too hard, but luckily the recent milder weather has defrosted the soil and apart from a frosty crust, it was easy to dig. I got up the last of the sprout sticks and put them in the compost bin, and harvested the remaining parsnips. I feel large quantities of spicy parsnip soup coming on - I must clear some space in the freezer!
My celeriac have been an utter disaster, only having reached the size of a small tennis ball, one of them will be usable once the mud and roots have been cleared away, but the others all went for compost.
Amazingly the Aquadulce broad beans that I put in as an autumn planting have survived the winter so far, and the garlic is thriving in little straight rows of erect green shoots.
Having now warmed up a bit I am off down to the kitchen to listen to the Archer's omnibus and do a full Claireish breakfast - potatoes, tomatoes, mushrooms, eggs, veggie sausages and chutney - YUM.

Robert de Niro's waiting...

It was a 1980's party, and we'd thought we'd go as Bananarama but got mistaken for Dexy's Midnight Runners!
I never normally wear make up, so this felt particularly weird to me. However, I felt the dungarees were strangely familiar...Berni & Penny went out to buy theirs specially, mine were already in my wardrobe!

Bad fireworks

I have never really enjoyed fireworks particularly. Apart from a few pleasant childhood memories of standing in the local churchyard with a polystyrene cup buckling under the heat of some tomato soup in my hand, my enjoyment of fireworks has not got much further than twiddling a sparkler or two.
I have always thought that fireworks are selfish as those who are letting them off have no control over who they are exposing to them.
This weekend I have been furious. We have worked really hard with Timmy (our nine year old rescue dog) over the past few months to help him decrease his anxiety levels and have really achieved some great things with him. Bang goes all of that this weekend - literally! He spent Wednesday night shaking after a couple of fireworks were let off outside the house. I had been putting a few drops of Rescue Remedy in his water, but soon realised that this was not enough. So Thursday we went off to the vet and came back with a pheramone collar and some doggy diazepam 'just in case'.
I soon realised that we were going to need the diazepam when he was actually sick with fear on Friday night, so Saturday was spent giving him plenty of exercise during the day and then it took a double dose to get him sufficiently relaxed so he could lie in front of the fire without being too troubled by all the explosions outside.
I remember a few years ago spending bonfire night in Leicester with a friend who had grown up in Derry during the 1970s. Walking back from the pub with him as fireworks were going off around us was the only time that I ever saw him shaken.
I think it is about time that we questioned our right to impose the experience of fireworks on people and animals who have no choice as to whether they want to participate or not.

In the store cupboard

At the end of the marathon session!

Autumn feelings

I got up at 7am and went down to the allotment. The smell of autumn was everywhere - that sense of damp with just a hint of early decay. Every thing looked great despite the fact that I have not been there for two weeks.
Here is my harvest (and yes, I did have to use the dog's car bowl to collect the raspberries and strawberries):

I am now filling the kitchen with autumn smells. The chutney marathon has commenced!

Here it is at the start.

Passing time..

I can not believe how long it is since I last made a posting here. It seems that summer is almost over. I'm sitting here at just after 8pm and it is almost dark outside. I have to confess to being a lover of the autumn and the winter (and spring too) - there is nothing better for me than being wrapped up in woolies, sitting in front of the fire or the log burner after a good walk. High summer is too hot for me, I flag easily and too much heat can actually make me feel quite unwell.
The latter half of this summer has suited me once the heat wave passed. We had a great holiday in Dorset. Whilst it was wet here in Suffolk we enjoyed fine weather to explore Dorset and Somerset.

Here are my boys outside our cottage.

Sunset over the field behind the cottage.

Nigel has a little lie down at an iron age hill fort.

My plan was to get back from holiday and set to the allotment with vigour. However, fifteen minutes after driving for five hours to get home, this silly woman decided to move our bed....felt something rip in my back and spent the rest of the final week off work going between bed, the bath and the living room floor - totally unable to sit down. Nigel though came to my rescue - whilst taking every opportunity to remind me of the self inflicted nature of my injuries - he took himself off to the allotment, dug over my beds and planted my 60 or so leeks. Husband points flowed.

My back is now 90% recovered and we have just spent a fabulous weekend at the wedding of our good friends Berni and Penny. Thanks Girls! It was great.

We left them on Sunday morning and went down to Brighton for a couple of days to catch up with Callie and Alfie.

Alfie's little slug impression.

Alfie popping out!

I finally got off to the allotment last night. I harvested some overgrown courgettes ready for the Glutney making this weekend, and my borlotti beans had dried on the canes, so I now have a fantastic harvest of the beautiful beans. The raspberries I planted the day that Alfie was born are covered in fruit, so I will picking those at the weekend if the birds have not eaten them all.

It feels good to be back - in a physical and emotional sense. Proximity to the soil is definately good for my soul.

Putting my back into it

This morning Nigel banned me from going to the allotment on the basis that I have hurt my back, however I managed to negotiate a 'picking only' trip.
After harvesting the courgettes, french beans and black currants I just couldn't ignore the take over of the brassica patch by weeds so managed to get up quite a lot of them using a bizarre lying on the floor sort of technique to avoid bending. I then took to pulling up the remaining broad bean plants to give on poor struggling courgette some much needed light.
After about ten minutes I had had enough, but this made me realise just how important that allotment patch has become to me. When I was initially considering not going, I felt a genuine sadness - like not being able to get to see a close friend when you have arranged to do so.
Hopefully my back will clear up in a couple of days to enable me to get up to the allotment to tackle the weeds properly as we are off to Dorset next weekend to take Timmy for his first holiday.

Knitted single covers

These are some of the results of our labours for the knitted single covers for our friend, Jason's record label.

It was great fun trying to find wierd and wonderful yearns to knit them up in. I certainly ended up with knitting RSI after a couple of sessions though!

Harvest!

Garlic and peas!

Also mange tout, onions and courgettes. The raspberries are fruiting their little socks off (despite supposedly being an autumn fruiting variety). Every trip to the allotment at the  moment is a tasting session!

In the garden I've got some beautiful french beans which are growing really well. They're grown from some heritage seed that I got given last year. They are said to be purple podded. The flower is the most beautiful and delicate pinky/purple.

It is so incredibly hot but despite the soil being so sandy, everything is thriving well without requiring too much water. A good soaking once or twice a week seems to be absolutely fine at the moment for the plants. Unlike for me, when I feel like I need a good soaking once or twice an hour! Nigel, Timmy and I went down to Southwold this morning to take advantage of the lovely sea breeze and righteous paddling ensued!