I’m not very good at composting. I have two daleks on the plot, they have been in the same position for the last four years, they get filled and pretty much left to their own devices. I do add all the green waste that I can get my hands on, it is layered as well. Rather than put in, in an ad hoc fashion. I even have organic activator that gets added from time to time.

It is predominantly green garden waste and the occasional set of veggie peelings that gets parcelled up and put in. No food, very few onion skids and nothing cooked or citric. These can not only invite unwelcome guests, acidity can rather upset the worms that end up living in the compost bin.

Ma and I went today, the bells of the local church was tolling for Easter services. Ma wanted to pull up grass and weed, I probably should have had a job in mine too. The plot varies in level all over. Yet there are very obvious dips, where at times the soil is liable to flood and very little grows there. In emptying the daleks, I could actually start build up one bed on the top part of the plot that is always soggy, and doesn’t facilitate an awful lot of cultivation. And I also manage to put some into a 1mx1m raised bed that will also have some MPC put into it.

I was rather pleasantly surprised by the contents of the two compost bins. Firstly, by the fact that things have actually decomposed, and produced rather full bodied, fine tilth in places, compost. Secondly, the volume. I had easily six or seven full wheelbarrows full of compost that were trundled across to whether the plot dips. This dip, incidentally, is where ma has put her rescued spinach. I don’t want the plants to be dead before long, so this area would benefit from the extra support. Hopefully these will now start to be filled and the cycle will start again. I have chose to move the daleks, to where they can easily by unloaded. This means the dips and areas not yet cultivated. I am also thinking, of how easy it might be to use a compost bin to grow squashes. If the contents of the bin were covered with a mound of  MPC and a squash plant stuck on top. Apparently this can  be done!