Upbeat day, although spent the morning on the computer catching up on yesterday's conference.
Then after lunch I took two medium sacks of seed compost down to St Nicks as Ivana had asked for some more. She also gave me the cheque for doing the Extreme Composting talk last week.
I cycled out of the back of the nature reserve to the Council depot, Hazel Court, with two broken toasters for their WEEE recycling. No hassles here this time.
Then down to my building society, to put that cheque in and transfer some money into out Co-op Suma account, as we're doing another order. And then to the bank to put that cheque in and one from a friend who participates in our food Co-op. I met my friend Jenny H and discussed a possible mediation session, but she might not be the best person for the situation which needs mediating.
From here I went to Country Fresh and got two carrier bags of fruit and veg, plus one sack and 4 boxes of lovely compostables. I got home just after our eldest son did, and he helped me unload the groceries. I then got busy in the garden... I pruned two of the small pear trees, removed honeysuckle from the James Grieve apple tree, pruned a shrub (can't remember it's name), cut down some brambles and dug out a compost heap into plastic sacks, to make space for turning another. I expect I'll do that on Sunday evening.
Gill created a noodles-based tea, with mushrooms, cashew nuts and asparagus. It was delicious. She'd made a microwaved cake for pudding which wasn't her best, according to her, but I enjoyed it...
Later I rang my Auntie in Norfolk and we chatted for nearly an hour. I also enjoyed watching Professor Brian Cox on the Jonathan Ross show, quite entertaining...
Showing posts with label seed compost. Show all posts
Showing posts with label seed compost. Show all posts
Friday, 26 March 2010
Sunday, 4 March 2007
Saturday 3rd March 07
Ah, nice to have a day when I'm not expected to do anything in particular. My boys were up early and the noise meant no lie-in, so I got up too and as they had lots of energy I invited them to cycle down to school with me, so I could pick up the plum logs I chopped on Thursday night. Whilst down there, I did a bit of gardening, tidying up, pulling out a few nettles etc, whilst the boys played in the grounds.
I spent some time later in the day building a logpile, I put a pile either side of the front door to fully dry off before they come in and sit near the stoves. For me, logpile construction is a bit like an adult jigsaw puzzle, as it has to fit together and stand up, and cope with some shrinkage as it dries. It is common for the pile to shift and lean over, and it's quite an art to build a good one. I use a varity of logs in these 'final' woodpiles, taken from several 'single type' woodpiles of ready wood. Different wood has different burning qualities, some burns easily and very hot (ie hawthorn) and some burns quickly and with low heat output, such as poplar. Some pine and most dense wood like oak will stay in overnight, and enable the stove to be lit on the embers in the morning. Split logs dry better than whole ones, and burn better too. This knowledge is important if you cook on the stove, boil kettles, and choose not to use central heating (runs on gas). I love Clearview Stoves, but this week will ring Town and Country Stoves, in Pickering, to see if their model tested recently was deemed to be 'smokefree'. I had a good chat with the son of the MD recently, who told me lots about the testing process that enables a particular model to have a certificate enabling it to be labelled smokefree.
In the afternoon I prepared my seed compost, five parts riddled leafmold, four parts loam from upturned turves and one part garden compost. I then looked for my pepper seeds, and Gill told me that sometime over the past few months, during a clearup (I'm very untidy and chaotic!) she'd put all of the veg and flower seeds in a large airtight plastic box. Unfortunately she'd also put in some onion sets. The moisture from these had cause the whole box contents to rot, including the majority of the seeds. The only ones to remain dry were the ones in foil/plastic sachets, unopened. This was dreadful, as most of our seeds are now no good. However, in a way it was a good way to 'weed out' the old ones which would have had poor or no germination anyway. Fortunately, the most recent seed order from the allotment store was not in this box, it was sitting (untidily) in a bookshelf in an envelope next to envelopes of bean pods and last season's pumpkins. So they were OK, and they included some peppers. So they got planted.
In the evening my LETS friend David called, asking if I could cut a sheet of woody material to size for him, for an art project. I went for a walk with him, as I'd noticed a ripe skip with a holly tree (combustable logettes and compostable twiglets) and some unpainted planed wood and several pallets for building another compost bin, New Zealand type, to replace one which is itself turning into compost. I loaded up my bike trailer and again reduced our overburdened landfill.
Later, gazed at the lunar eclipse with binoculars, totally wow.
I spent some time later in the day building a logpile, I put a pile either side of the front door to fully dry off before they come in and sit near the stoves. For me, logpile construction is a bit like an adult jigsaw puzzle, as it has to fit together and stand up, and cope with some shrinkage as it dries. It is common for the pile to shift and lean over, and it's quite an art to build a good one. I use a varity of logs in these 'final' woodpiles, taken from several 'single type' woodpiles of ready wood. Different wood has different burning qualities, some burns easily and very hot (ie hawthorn) and some burns quickly and with low heat output, such as poplar. Some pine and most dense wood like oak will stay in overnight, and enable the stove to be lit on the embers in the morning. Split logs dry better than whole ones, and burn better too. This knowledge is important if you cook on the stove, boil kettles, and choose not to use central heating (runs on gas). I love Clearview Stoves, but this week will ring Town and Country Stoves, in Pickering, to see if their model tested recently was deemed to be 'smokefree'. I had a good chat with the son of the MD recently, who told me lots about the testing process that enables a particular model to have a certificate enabling it to be labelled smokefree.
In the afternoon I prepared my seed compost, five parts riddled leafmold, four parts loam from upturned turves and one part garden compost. I then looked for my pepper seeds, and Gill told me that sometime over the past few months, during a clearup (I'm very untidy and chaotic!) she'd put all of the veg and flower seeds in a large airtight plastic box. Unfortunately she'd also put in some onion sets. The moisture from these had cause the whole box contents to rot, including the majority of the seeds. The only ones to remain dry were the ones in foil/plastic sachets, unopened. This was dreadful, as most of our seeds are now no good. However, in a way it was a good way to 'weed out' the old ones which would have had poor or no germination anyway. Fortunately, the most recent seed order from the allotment store was not in this box, it was sitting (untidily) in a bookshelf in an envelope next to envelopes of bean pods and last season's pumpkins. So they were OK, and they included some peppers. So they got planted.
In the evening my LETS friend David called, asking if I could cut a sheet of woody material to size for him, for an art project. I went for a walk with him, as I'd noticed a ripe skip with a holly tree (combustable logettes and compostable twiglets) and some unpainted planed wood and several pallets for building another compost bin, New Zealand type, to replace one which is itself turning into compost. I loaded up my bike trailer and again reduced our overburdened landfill.
Later, gazed at the lunar eclipse with binoculars, totally wow.
Monday, 26 February 2007
26th Feb 07
A day with not much on, so a late start and then my usual monday cycle into York to collect compostables from Out Of This World ethical supermarket, via Richard the greengrocer, who was a happy recipient of a super selection of home-made dried fruit, as a thank you for his sorting out materials for me... and keeping them out of landfill. So OOTW had about 40kg for me and on the way back, Richard gave me another 15 or 20 kg. I know the approx weights as when York Rotters got its first funding, DEFRA requested information about weights of materials being diverted away from landfill. I bought a pocket-sized spring-balance from Barnitts and weighed my compostables for months and months, and recorded the weights and types of material (ie from our kitchen; commercial fruit/veg; cardboard; neighbours garden materials; my compost toilet materials) and so I know approximately how heavy any particular bag or brewing bucket is. So today I diverted about 55 or 60 kg from landfill into my lovely compost heaps.
I know I've got OCD (Obsessive Composting Disorder) but at least it's a healthy pro-sustainability obsession. I also love doing my dried fruit on the logstove. I gave Richard a selection including blackberry and apple leather, pomegranate and apple leather, pear slices, apple rings, experimental dried lychee blobs, melon strips, mango slices, a single strip of pawpaw, a jar or stove-dried raisins and ditto of stove-dried bananas. Richard wanted to have a snack which was healthier than biscuits, so he was happy with the delicious fruit.
When I got home I bunged some of the manky stuff on the current heap and then I started to prepare the leafmold for this year's seed compost. I collect aunumn leaves from the side of roads, Windmill Lane is good as I can cycle fast down it and then put my booted foot down in the gutter and scrape up a big pile of leaves as I come to a halt. Then I put this pile in the trailer and do another acceleration and foot down scraping action for another load. All these leaves are collected in a chicken wire leaf-mold holder and left for a year. Before I collect the next year's autumn crop, I put the partly rotted leafmold into plastic sacks, removing 'contraries' as I do this (fag ends, plastic bits, broken glass etc) and also sticks which go into the fruit/veg compost. A year later these bags are rotaseived into a 'dalek' composter, layered with comfrey leaves to add some nutrients. This well rotted and by now very fine material is an excellent alternative to peat, and I use it in seed compost as the major constituent, and in my potting composts as a third of the mix. So I got together a sack of ready-to-use leafmold and also riddled (with the rotaseive) some fresh stuff into the top of the dalek. No comfrey at this time of year, but it isn't essential.
I went to the school with my wife to meet with one of my boy's teachers, to discuss how he was doing. Apparently his behaviour is OK at school, and he keeps his loud outbursts for us at home. This is very common, as other parents have mentioned it. Both boys requested 'bundles' when they got home, so I obliged after a half hour of bow-sawing some oak logs. I like to do a bit of logging fairly often. The bundling was a little rough but tea being served put a stop to it.
Tea was omlette done on the woodstove, even though Gill said it wasn't hot enough and would make a rubbery omlette. If I lived by myself I wouldn't eat omlette, infact I probably wouldn't eat eggs, as I would probably go vegan. A vegan lifestyle is the lowest carbon diet, and of course it's the most respectful of animals. It's funny, I love animals but would prefer not to see them in the fields or being used as pets or for entertainment, unless they were wild animals such as birds in the garden and other wildlife. I like the spiders and the silverfish sharing the house with us, though. But not mice, which I admit to trapping and composting. Mice in the house are not acceptable, mice in the compost heaps are. Rats in the compost heaps are not acceptable and I disturb them to encourage them to go elsewhere. It's odd, I have different standards!
I know I've got OCD (Obsessive Composting Disorder) but at least it's a healthy pro-sustainability obsession. I also love doing my dried fruit on the logstove. I gave Richard a selection including blackberry and apple leather, pomegranate and apple leather, pear slices, apple rings, experimental dried lychee blobs, melon strips, mango slices, a single strip of pawpaw, a jar or stove-dried raisins and ditto of stove-dried bananas. Richard wanted to have a snack which was healthier than biscuits, so he was happy with the delicious fruit.
When I got home I bunged some of the manky stuff on the current heap and then I started to prepare the leafmold for this year's seed compost. I collect aunumn leaves from the side of roads, Windmill Lane is good as I can cycle fast down it and then put my booted foot down in the gutter and scrape up a big pile of leaves as I come to a halt. Then I put this pile in the trailer and do another acceleration and foot down scraping action for another load. All these leaves are collected in a chicken wire leaf-mold holder and left for a year. Before I collect the next year's autumn crop, I put the partly rotted leafmold into plastic sacks, removing 'contraries' as I do this (fag ends, plastic bits, broken glass etc) and also sticks which go into the fruit/veg compost. A year later these bags are rotaseived into a 'dalek' composter, layered with comfrey leaves to add some nutrients. This well rotted and by now very fine material is an excellent alternative to peat, and I use it in seed compost as the major constituent, and in my potting composts as a third of the mix. So I got together a sack of ready-to-use leafmold and also riddled (with the rotaseive) some fresh stuff into the top of the dalek. No comfrey at this time of year, but it isn't essential.
I went to the school with my wife to meet with one of my boy's teachers, to discuss how he was doing. Apparently his behaviour is OK at school, and he keeps his loud outbursts for us at home. This is very common, as other parents have mentioned it. Both boys requested 'bundles' when they got home, so I obliged after a half hour of bow-sawing some oak logs. I like to do a bit of logging fairly often. The bundling was a little rough but tea being served put a stop to it.
Tea was omlette done on the woodstove, even though Gill said it wasn't hot enough and would make a rubbery omlette. If I lived by myself I wouldn't eat omlette, infact I probably wouldn't eat eggs, as I would probably go vegan. A vegan lifestyle is the lowest carbon diet, and of course it's the most respectful of animals. It's funny, I love animals but would prefer not to see them in the fields or being used as pets or for entertainment, unless they were wild animals such as birds in the garden and other wildlife. I like the spiders and the silverfish sharing the house with us, though. But not mice, which I admit to trapping and composting. Mice in the house are not acceptable, mice in the compost heaps are. Rats in the compost heaps are not acceptable and I disturb them to encourage them to go elsewhere. It's odd, I have different standards!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
