Progress with my no-dig beds!

Two 7.30am starts on a weekend? What the hell is wrong with me?


This weekend was a pretty pivotal time in the development of my new plot. I had a delivery of well rotted manure scheduled to be dropped off at 9.30am on Saturday, which meant that I needed to get there early to lay down the cardboard mulch layer. As I've covered previously in my blog, the idea is that the cardboard acts as a weed barrier, suffocating light to any weeds or grass which are below. Over time(between 3 months and a year depending on species) this will kill off weeds below, which will then rot down and give the nutrients back to the soil. Once you apply the compost/manure layer over the top you have a bed ready for planting, and over time the cardboard layer also rots, adding carbon while simultaneously conditioning the soil.

But of course, you firstly need to remove all of the cellophane, sticky tape and staples from the boxes. This is where my superb and much loved girlfriend sacrificed her Friday night and helped me to get it all off on a full carload of boxes.

So, I dressed up warm looked out of the window at 7.30am on Saturday, and of course it was the first snowy day of the year! Thank goodness for thermals!

Here was the plot as it looked when I arrived. BRRRRR!

Mission number one was to unload the piles of boxes from the car and get laying them out to create beds before the muck was delivered. This is the end bed(East side) which will house my asparagus - it took a LOT of boxes to cover. I laid them like fish scales to protect them from lifting in the northerly wind.

When I initially rang the farmer to order the manure, he asked me if I needed £20, £30 or £40 worth. Having never ordered this kind of volume before I didn't have a clue, but it did occur to me that running out would be a bit of a problem.

So I ordered the £40 load and at bang on 9.30am it turned up.....

All 4 tonnes of it  😔

 

I'm not ashamed to admit that when I saw how much there was and realised I had to shift every single bit of it on my wheelbarrow, I nearly created a little of my own...

I duly then spent the next 4 hours of Saturday and from 8am-2pm the following day, shovelling shit into my barrow and wheeling it back and forth across the plot. It was hard, sloppy work in the rain.

What the picture doesn't convey is the shitty quagmire which really slowed things down.

Also caught a flat on the wheelbarrow, which lost me an hour (I know, that's the crappest flat ever) Still, I made great progress and built four beds by Sunday lunchtime

That end bed at the back is around 9 metres long

 

The section above to the right of the barrow is where the pond, hostas  and lupins will be going. The large 9m bed behind will hold salad and my long term Asparagus project

I'll add another layer of cardboard then woodchip the gap in the centres of the beds once they replenish the stockpile - which they do 3 or 4 times per year.

Got a lot of work done this weekend, but still have around 1.5T of manure to shift. I'm really happy - spent a whole weekend up there getting filthy, but it was worth it.

Bottoms up!