It’s been several months since I have been out in my garden. I have been working most weekends, and when I have had some time to work in the garden, it has been pouring with rain.
It was a perfect day to be out there, but the garden was a bit of a sad sight: weeds have had a happy time over the past eight weeks without me to diligently pull them out. I spent three or so hours out there, and the whole time I weeded and mulched the garden with compost.
The compost has been slowly maturing for the past couple of months. It was activated by the addition of horse and pigeon manure (both gifts from my awesome neighbour, John). It has been turned a couple of times in the past twelve weeks, but essentially it has been left alone. I use the black ‘Dalek’ style compost bins, which even in Winter heat up well enough to make great compost. I do have the space for these and I am physically fit enough to turn the compost every six weeks or so. When I am older, I will probably switch them out for a compost tumbler, which will be easier to manage as my already cranky hip gets crankier.
I don’t dig compost into the garden; rather I mulch the beds with it. After I weeded the veggie beds, I mulched over the beds with the compost. I was able to mulch about half my veggie garden with lovely compost.
The sun was gentle, the breeze was light, and I listened to gardening and food podcasts while I weeded and mulched. I picked radishes and rhubarb, and made a little radish pickle for funsies in the afternoon. It was so lovely to be out there again, if only for a few hours.