27 September 2008

A thing of beauty!



After a year in the making it was time to break out the leaf mould. Now I have to say after two car journeys to fill about 10 old compost bags full of leaves, then cram them into the leaf mould basket, I'm a little disappointed that the end result is just one wheelbarrow full of mulch.



Needless to say it didn't go far, but it did look good. Nice and dark, crumbly, smelled good... And then I realised I was possibly a little too much into it ;>) Anyway, I put it round the brassicas, not as deep as I'd like it to have been mind. I should also point out that the picture is very flattering to the Brussels, they're not as tall as they look!



Fortunately (?) there were two less celeriac to mulch around after they joined the long, long list of casualties lost to the slugs.

The 'Great Autumn Tidy Up' commenced and I cut down the remains of the broad beans and peas to add to the compost heap. The summer squash were no more (well they were only maintaining a healthy slug population, it's not like we'd seen anything off them for sometime now) and the comfrey (again maintaining far too many slugs than should be on an allotment) joined them all on the compost heap. The weeds that have been covering my main path were cleared off and I weeded some of the empty parts of the beds. Obviously there's a little more work to be done...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lovely colour and texture to that leaf mold. Did you have to do anything other than pack it into your wire cage?

I was thinking about doing this myself but do you think its really worth it if it took so much time and bags of leaves for just one barrow full.

Will you be collecting more this year for next?

I have my own blog too, have linked yours in, would you mind doing the same for me.

Regards,

Cazaux

RobD said...

I just crammed as much as possible into the leaf basket, watered it a couple of times and applied some activator for leaves (Biotal - from Organic Garden Catalogue). I guess I attempted to turn it a couple of times as well, as I wanted to see how it was doing! Took a long time, but not effort from me, so definitely going to do it again this year, just going to make a bigger leaf basket ;>)

Anonymous said...

Hi Rob,

It sounds pretty much the same as composting without the hassle of adding layers of greens and browns.

I would be interested to see your leaf basket and a little info on what you used to construct it. Plagiarism will get you a head start ;o).

I have Activator from home base. I'd imagine it’s pretty much the same thing but I'll check it’s suitable.

I put the garlic in on the 14th September. I week too early but what the hey. It’s from farmers markets in Provence France and Guadamar in Spain so I thought that it could do with a little more growth before we get hammered with our abysmal winters.

Went over last night some of them have reached about four cm, others have not done mush yet but most have broken through the soil.

I would definitely recommend the seaweed if you can get hold of it. They seem to love it.

About 30% of the onions have shown shoots but the shallots haven't done anything yet.

Thanks for your comments.

Cazaux.

RobD said...

See 21 Oct 2007 for a picture of the leaf basket. It was left on the plot prior to me taking it over, I just fashioned it into a 'square' and propped it against the hedge! But the new improved version will just be some chicken wire attached to some stakes hamered into the ground (1 in each corner, possibly more in the middle depending on the size).

Bit far from the coast here for seaweed, but I use seaweed meal quite a bit.