What I did today 2021

[StephenH]

The key to getting it to heat up is to have a good mix of materials (especially some nitrogen-rich ones), cut everything up as small as you can, and push everything down so that there are no large air gaps. Large air gaps are always bad; the ideal is to have lots and lots of tiny air gaps.

Thanks for the advice!

[StephenH]

I have finally finished digging the "everything else" bed, and sown Swiss Chard and "Lollo Rossa" Lettuce. The previously-dug half of the bed contains my onions. I don't know how much of what I've planted and sown will come up; it may have a lot of competition from perennial weeds. I've been removing roots as I dig, but have inevitably left some behind. At some stage, I may have to temporarily forget my organic principles, zap them all with weedkiller, and then go back to being organic.
Yesterday, I finished filling one compost bin, with weeds gathered from beside footpaths. I watered that heap this morning, and also the beds, as we haven't had significant rain for some time.
I don't think I'll grow onions in the future; I'll grow shallots instead, as they are much easier than onions: you plant whole shallots, and each one multiplies underground, so that you harvest a bunch of them. I read somewhere that the word "onion" is related to "union", "one", etc., because it is the only member of the allium family which doesn't multiply, providing many bulbs or cloves from one, unlike shallots, garlic, etc. That may be a load of Ronnie Rollocks, but it makes sense.

[Containergardener]

Split salvia to take more cuttings
Sowed salad seeds
Pricked out and potted up godetia and cornflower

[ameno]

Some more digging, and I started putting in some poles for the tomato support frame.

[Snoop Puss]

Hoicked compost from the 8x4 bay into the 12x6 bay. It was started late due high winds, only been going 9 days and still at 65C but we collected another delivery of rabbit poo and wanted to start it straight away to get back into the fortnightly cycle.

Can you explain your fortnightly cycle, Mr B?

[Mr Bones]

Can you explain your fortnightly cycle, Mr B?

We collect 11 to 16 bags of rabbit muck roughly once a fortnight (just fits onto a 5x4 trailer). Once wetted the contents heat up rapidly but having a high wood shaving content the temp drops off at about the two week mark. Most veg including chopped brassica stems are broken down during the two weeks of of high heat so we then turf it out into the bigger bay where it can stand and finish.
Working like this suits the regular supply and moving it over to the finishing bay allows plenty of room to turn and aerate the next hot batch.

All garden greens are added when starting a new batch plus two heaped barrow loads of shredded Leylandii. (The Leylandii works really well preventing the wood shavings from clogging together and becoming anaerobic). Once it gets hot a new pile needs to be turned every other day to keep it aerated (based on the Berkley method).

[Snoop Puss]

Wow! You must make an amazing amount of compost every year, Mr Bones. Bet it's lovely stuff.

[Containergardener]

Thats alot of rabbit muck

[Bren In Pots]

Seed sowing and planting out lettuce today.

[ameno]

Dug over last year's oca bed, then sowed a row each of carrots, beetroot and black cumin.

[Purple Primrose]

Lovely day today and the forecast is good for the next few days so got some garlic and shallots out of the cold frames to begin hardening them off. Also weeded a couple of beds and planted one of them with main crop potatoes.

[Purple Primrose]

Got some more weeding done and planted the second earlies.

[annie8]

Broke one of the glass slats on my greenhouse vent.

[Mr Bones]

Planted out fennel, spring onions and red onions. Potted on the Tom's.

[ameno]

Planted out my second gutter of peas (sugar snap this time).
Dug out last year's runner bean roots to pot up at home and grow on quicker.
Mulched the quince.
Finished rigging up my tomato frame.