Waark!com

Composting March 19, 2007

This weekend we got the compost heap sides up. Was thinking of just using the few pallets that were dumped on my site by neighbours - but on the way round I realised I didn’t have a saw. We stopped off at the girlfriends and I noticed several slabs of exterior polystyrene (the type they clad houses with). It had apparently been knocked off and broken by british gas last week and was off to the tip! So I decided to liberate this to use as a side of my heap. Then I noticed lots of 2×1 (pressure treated) sitting in the skip next door. Being a sunday I didn’t expect anyone to be around but was suprised to hear music coming from the 2nd story. I shouted a bit and a sparky shouted I could take what I wanted. I left with a couple of reels of electrical cable and loads and loads of offcuts. I used the offcuts and plastic to build a nice solid compost heap (and noticed growing potatoes from those I dugg up earlier in the year). I got the scrounged waterbutt on some rammed earth tyres. That was a quest in itself - I moved six wheelbarrows of earth to fill two 16″ tyres! Job done (it was quite windy) I secured the barrel with the electrical wire against the compost heap (which I intend to roof and gather water off. This barrel will be filled with comfrey later in the year to provide extremely smelly fertiliser for the plot. My girlfriend finished bed one of her salad crops bed and will start planting out as soon as the frosts are over this week (fingers crossed…) I also sunk my old chicken poop container filled with wood chippings for beetles and the like. I was visited by another allotment holder who is providing me with frog spawn and some foremost seed potatoes. This is when I made a shocking discovery… I found eggs (chicken) laid in the straw beds of my allotment. I know they are chicken eggs because they have the lion mark. Someone is paying tricks on me… I know shells are good for the compost heap but are full eggs OK too?