Catching up!

Oh dear, I've been very lax with the garden spring summer. There's a lot of empty ground which I feel v bad about, although I'm plotting what I could get in there, there's always time to grow *something*.

At the moment Lakers Garden has potatoes (sprouted ones left over from last year's), the ubiquitous rhubarb - still insane...I'm thinking as it's late in the season and there's still masses of it...jam!? Also I've grown broad beans and field beans but I can't for the life of me remember which is which...and they look the same?!...argh! The chives are all blossoming, as you can see from the top picture, and there's some spring onions in, garlic in pots and strawberries in the planter.

The leaf mold I created by bagging up the leaves on the drive has now been spread on top of the beds. I have braved the hard slog of digging out the compost at the bottom of the compost bin to supplement the planters. The bottom of it had litterally turned to soil so it was a task and a half to dig it out! In case you are wondering, my compost bin contains bokashi waste, chicken poo and nest straw, vaccum emptyings, grass cuttings, annual weeds, tea bags, budgie cage emptyings...basically anything compostable! It makes for good compost and smaller black bags. Very worthwhile and I feel like I'm feeding my own ground with my very existence. Um yeah, I sound like a total hippy!

The compost bin...I need 2 really, this one is always blinking full!
Ooo...we have new chickens...more on that very soon! I won't leave it so long from now on.

Bokashi Update

I thought it might be nice to add a little about Bokashi, so here you go.

What is Bokashi Fermentation?

It is the process of pickling organic waste material prior to composting. Waste food stuffs, (including meat, fish, dairy, bones) are added to the special bucket which has a sump to collect the liquid. The aim of the Bokashi system is not to actually compost, but to ferment your food stuffs, this puts it in a prime state to decompose rapidly when it's buried and comes into contact with soil bacteria and microorganisms. The active ingredient is the 'bran' which you will need to keep purchasing for the system to work. The bran contains microorganisms (Lactobacilli, Fungi/yeast, and phototropic bacilli) which cause a fermentation process. When you add new waste to the bin you need to sprinkle 'bokashi bran' on top and push the contents down to exclude as much air as possible, since the fermentation relies on anerobic (with out oxygen) conditions. The container is filled and left to sit for a week or two and the contents are then either buried in the garden or put into the compost bin where they will very quickly compost into nothing. The advantage to adding it to your compost heap is that it will heat up your compost bin, speeding up the composting off all the other contents. The liquid that drains to the bottom of the sump needs to be emptied via the tap and can be diluted 1 to 100 water and used to feed plants, or poured down the drain/plughole, which gives the added benefit of deoderising action.

So, our progress so far? After several weeks of using the bokashi system the contents looks as above. The yellowy brown bits are the bokashi bran (comprised of wheat bran, molasses and microorganisms). The smell is not bad at all, it's like a mild vinegary smell, and only if you stick your fact right next to it. I had heard such terrible things about smells akin to vomit and dog poo, but I suspect people with bad results had skimped on the bran (or maybe they had a lot more meat waste than us, you don't get much meat wasted with 4 Greyhounds). The best bit is that it's started to release fluid, which we can drain off through the tap in the bottom. I've been using it to make fertiliser for the house plants. The only pain is that you can't add tea bags, coffee grounds work great but tea bags produce the dreaded blue mould of doom. Blue mould is apparently very bad in bokashi buckets. No matter, we have a compost caddy next to the bokashi bin so all the non fermentable stuff like paper towels, receipts and tea bags go in there, where they can blue mould to their hearts content. Blimey, what a load of hippies we are turning into!

More Hard Labour

So this weekend was one of labour. On Saturday end of the garden was attached by me and my mate Ant (friends with muscles help), we've managed to dig out almost all of the turf now, the only bit left is under the pile of dug up turf we have created (the floor in an otherwise winning plan). In the evening it was off out to buy a Hippo Bag for the waste.

I realised with dismay that the rat problem is still excalating, not only are they are refusing to take the bait from the bait boxes but they have now discovered the delights of the compost bin. I have done some reading and have decided that I shall be buying a pre moulded plastic base tray for the bottom of the bin to provide some rat protection and wrapping the whole thing in chicken wire (maybe overkill but I am so sick of bloody rats in the garden!). I have also just purchased a Bokashi system.

The Bokashi system cleverly pickles down your waste (even meat, fish and dairy), fermenting it into a better state for composing in your cmpost bin (or burying in the ground). It also apparently creates a hotter compost bin, which should nicely speed up the rotting. This is good from two aspects, the rats apparently dislike fermented waste, and the compost should be ready quicker than it would in a slow bin. I found out my local council offer a reasonable deal on Bokashi bins, so I bought mine from their website (birmingham.getcomposting.com)

Sunday was the big push. We worked from 11am to 7pm without a break, we being me and Nath, plus my mom and dad. We've cleared 90% of the turf, rubble and junk from the end of the garden, and lots from all over the garden really. It was surprisingly easy to fill a 1ton Hippo Bag! I think we may need another! Today I ache like a bugger, but I am hoping that one more serious session in the garden, plus buying and errecting the boards to make the raised beds will be enough to have a useable veg garden. Hopefully the rats will be eliminated soon. Not sure I want to even think about eating from where rats are walking!