Friday 27 June 2008

A vegetable flower bed

...for a dozen potatoes. Gardening in the rain - not quite my kind of thing normally, as it compresses the soil AND lets the mud stick to my shoes - yes, it's the clay type of soil we have here.

Glad I did it though as it got me one step nearer to my gardening goal for the back of the house. This year I want to create a vegetable bed going all around the lawn. I'm not too proud to say that today I achieved another 40 cm towards that goal. At that speed, I'm not sure I'll be finished by Christmas ...

My excuse is that I do this job REALLY WELL which includes digging out stones in all sizes, BIG chunks of clay, crumbling the soil, AND getting rid of a week's worth of kitchen scraps at once - a treat for those busy earthworms who will transform this ancient sea bed into nice dark rich crumbly fertile garden soil...

This method is called trench composting and I have to say it's just right for me. Why? Because I certainly DON'T have the patience to wait for half a year in order for those few stray earthworms that happen to find their way into my compost bin to do this sisyphos work...