Allotment Diary–Sunday 12 June 2016

I did a lot of weeding today and it struck me how strange it to to enjoy weeding, then I realised that it has all the hallmarks of being in ‘flow’, you need to concentrate, it take a long time, you make progress.  basically it’s a state of relaxed, focused productivity and it’s great – provided I feel on top of it that is, when I’m in control of the weeds and not the other way around.

It’s kind of the same with the composting, I have one hot bin at the moment, that’s at a nice 50 degrees.  I turned it for the final time, providing more water, a few greens and a few handfuls of chicken manure.  Turning a bin takes quite a lot of effort and I have three active bins, so it’s quite a job, but once they are all done I will have three cubic meters of top quality compost, which would otherwise cost about £500, so it’s worthwhile.  My current hot bin should take to the end of June to finish and then it will be the turn of the other bins to be turned and heated up, in July and August, all ready for spreading on the raised beds once they are cleared in September.  Once all four bins are empty I will stock three with separate ingredients, one bin of greens, one of horse manure, one of leaves, the last one will be my active garden waste bin.  The three bins will provide the ingredients for my hot beds – that’s the plan.

The next job was to clear out the hearted lettuces and a couple of rows of radish that were planted last week, that went ‘leggy’,  that left a well prepared three row space for more red lettuces.

I also cleared a half row of radish that will be cleared and re-planted next week.

Finally after a good weed I finished cropping the strawberry beds

And cropped 10 bags of salad, half of which I gave away, today I picked lettuces, radish, two types of kale and broccoli leaves.