Wednesday 13th April 11

I had a message yesterday from Peter Tatham (who I spent a day with in Bradford last week) and he's coming to York tomorrow and has asked if he could pick up some potting compost, and some unriddled compost.  So today, I spent a lot of time sorting out a very large amount of growing media mix.

However, first I needed to deliver the last 5 sacks of compost to the beds at St Clements Church, and I'd been invited to go to the Green Party Office to stick labels on envelopes.  So, the compost was loaded up and when I got there, several people were busy dealing with the compost I'd taken down previously, so I helped them move the sacks to where they were needed, and I brought the empty sacks back with me.

The Green Party office wasn't ready for me to do the envelopes, so after waiting for a while, I came away, via a skip next to Holgate Villas, where a chap who was filling it gave me permission to mine it... in fact, he helped me get some wood out of it.  I also got a nice bucket and a load of cloth 'bags for life', 24 in total, which I gave to Richard at Country Fresh, to give out to people instead of plastic ones.  I came back with 2 boxes of compostables from there.

Back at home, after lunch, I already had 3 large sacks of mature compost riddled and waiting for something to happen to them. I got a load of leafmould, that had spent a year in the chicken wire enclosure and had been shoved into plastic sacks, and brought that up the garden to the soil sifter, and handful by handful, put it through.  The smallest bits fell through, and lumps, sticks, stones, cigarette filters and plastic rubbish all arrived at the other end of the cylinder, and fell into the builders bag, where I was able to sort out the rubbish from the stones and sticks, and put the remaining leafmould into a bag, giving it a rub between my palms, which broke up lumps and un-digested leaves, and this material I put back through the riddle, just once, to extract more powdery stuff.  This way, I got 4 really big bags of riddled leafmould, one big bag of still-recognisable leaves, plus a wooden fruit box full of sticks and other re-compostable material, and a few waste stones and bits of plastic string, smokers' litter, chocolate wrappers, etc.

I bagged up all the riddled leafmould and did a similar job with a load of loam.  I got 3 wheelbarrows full of old turf from a turf pile, material rescued from a skip several years ago.  I bunged this through the riddle, which screened out all the roots and mats of old grass, and stones, etc, but gave me a really large pile of very fine dusty loam.

So these three ingredients were what I needed to make potting compost, or 'container growing medium'.  However, I also got some old pots from the conservatory which I'd grown tomatoes in last year, plus a bit of sand which came from the Barbican Beds last year.  I then put 3 handfuls of leafmould in a bucket, plus 4 handfuls of compost, 2 handfuls of loam and a small handful of both sand and old soil, and threw this mix into the riddle, which seemed the best way to mix it up.  I did this again and again, and ended up with 9 large sacks of home-made growing media.  Some of these will go to Peter tomorrow morning, the others will go in our pots for growing veggies this year.

This took all afternoon... I came in for tea at about 7 and then went back out til 8.30, when it got too dark for the work to continue.

Then, after a wash, I went down to Green Drinks at the 3 Legged Mare.  Jennie was there, her last one as she's leaving to live in London, and Tom, Tomas and Eleanor, and then Peter Gay arrived, and Melanie, and June and Dave Taylor, and others... it was quite busy!

I came back via Millers Yard, and picked up some logs on the cycle track on the way home.... I got in after midnight.

Tuesday 5th April 11

An enjoyable day spent mostly in the garden, but also with a cycle delivery and a Fiddlesticks gig which went well.

So, once I'd had breakfast and done my usual round of emails and facebook messages, I got outside and put another load of compost through the rotary soil sifter machine.  This results in 6 streams of material.  The highly desirable (I hope!) riddled compost... small particles, hardly any 'contraries' ie bits of plastic, wire, stones, other bits and bobs, and this I bag up into plastic carrier bags.  Then there's the stiff which doesn't go through the riddle, but out the other side... five streams, oversize sticks, avocado stones, roadkill animal bones etc, for re-composting; small sticks etc which are bagged up for a mulch, or woody layer in new heaps; chunks of compost which I'm bagging up for Edible York; stones and bits of pottery, brick, etc; and finally the stuff for landfill... mainly plastic tape, film and glue strips.  I really enjoy working through this and getting the sacks of mature compost screened and sorted through and cleaned up.

By 5pm I had got 5 sacks of compost ready for Edible York so I cycled them down to St Clements.  Met one friend on the way home, stopped off at Country Fresh, and then showed Will next door my soil sifter, and finally got into the house at 6pm.  Gill had made some little rissoles from yesterday's left-over rice, with assorted veg and a potato and chive salad.  Yummy!

Then I got changed into my Fiddlesticks gear, loaded up the bike with all my workshop stuff and headed over Walmgate Stray to the Millennium Bridge and then onto the Scout hut on Lorne Street.  This was the second gig with these youngsters, so I did a 5 minute intro, reminding them of the 'how to' and some basic rules, and then we did a one-hour free play session.  Then, 20 minutes from the end, we did a show, with individual children coming up and performing their trick, or tricks.  Most of them were awarded the Circus Performers badge, and I was very surprised, and honoured, to be given one as well.  I waited around for the kids to go and then my contact, James, paid me and I signed the receipt he'd prepared.

A nice cycle home and a relaxing evening followed.

Sunday 3rd April 11

Woke up with a bit of headache but got up as some of the family were going with Simon and Melody to a car boot sale at Murton.  Melody arrived and loaded up the few bits and bobs we'd gathered together, and our eldest went in the car with Melody, whilst Gill, Simon and Simon and Melody's son cycled up.  I stayed at home with our youngest.

I got my quiet shredder out and mangled-up all the cherry twigs I pruned off yesterday, depositing them into a builder's bag which was easy to haul down the garden.  This will make a good few layers of woody, carbon-rich material for my heaps. My headache disappeared.

I came in for 11am and watched Country Tracks whilst preparing apples for drying.  I lit the stove and did some washing up.  Gill came back and there were tales of assorted sales.  One of my parcels of NewScientists had been bought... by Simon and Melody!!!

During the afternoon I got out my Scheppach rotary soil sifter and put several sacks of compost through it, and this made 10 carrier bags of lovely fine riddled compost, a very large sack of medium lumps (maybe 30kg?) and 2 buckets worth of sticks, peach stones, avocado stones and skin, and other bits destined to be a woody layer in a working heap.  Oh, and loads of bits of plastic from wrapped cucumbers, fruit labels and glue strips.  I worked til 7pm in the garden, loved it, just loved it.

Gill told me to come in then, and sit and have tea whilst watching Countryfile.  Later, I researched how I'm going to get to my Uncle's funeral in the depths of Norfolk the week after next.  I'll need to make it a day trip... I reckon a train to Peterborough and a bus from there.