Sunday, August 30, 2009

Back from Hibernation

I've been hibernating over winter - except for looking after the Broad Beans and Onions.

Time to wake up, get the Green Manure in, get the Mulch on, and start planting.

2009-08-22d

The system I have now developed is that I only fork over my beds twice a year - once when I plant the green manure, and once when I dig it in. I now pull my green manure, dig a trench, cut the green manure into it (so it doesn't shoot again), and cover the trench. That is the second dig-over for the year. I then dig the next trench beside the last one.

It was only towards the end (not photographed), that I added some refinements:

2009-08-22c

Firstly, I jumped the fence (note the bag, it is barbed wire), and collected a few barrow-loads from the neighbours. This was added to the trenches with the manure.

And I discovered that if I put the soil from the first trench in the barrow, threw the soil from the second into the first, and used the barrow load to fill the last ....... it saved a heck of a lot of work!

The mulch is now on, the brew is cooking, and some seeds are in. Tommie seeds into punnets next!