Dear Diary,
I have written a terse letter to the Meteorological Office regarding the weather. I really don’t know what they’re playing at but this nonsense has got to stop. Questions must be asked in the House. Ordinary working people should not have to put up with this and neither should I. Average rainfall for March should be 54 mm, thus far we have already put up with about 16 feet. Excuse me mixing my metric and imperial but the precipitation is driving me potty.
As I am sure you are aware, us Higgledys are not prone to complaining, we do not dwell on disappointment nor languish in self pity…we are men and women of steel…upwards and onwards we March! I am pleased to let you know we have the first of the two ‘meadow beds’ at the church sown up. Flash and I hunted down some compost in easily moved 40L bags from the good folk at Aldi. We are brewing large amounts (Perhaps as much as eight cubic meters) at Willow Farm but it needs a good six months to transmogrify from a mix of cow manure, straw, leaves, and some bought in compost into a loose and friable growing medium. Farmer Jane and I have named our composty cocktail, ‘Friesian Gold’…one day it will be the talk of the Welsh Borders, and people will come from far off lands just to be close to it and bathe in its healing niffs. Until then I will get what I can throw into the back of the car.
The twin beds at the church are both 20 square meters. One of them had been glysophated by the powers that be…blame God not me. The upside to this is that I haven’t needed to lay down any cardboard for my ‘do dig’ method. (I have mixed views of ‘no dig’…more on that another time…suffice to say I might call myself a ‘minimal digger’.) The second bed is going to have a layer of compost over a couple of layers of cardboard and it will be sown up two or three weeks later than we sowed up the first bed.)
In each bed a will sow the world famous Higgledy Garden 60g Bee Friendly Mix:
“This is the big sister of our 4g ‘Bee Friendly Mix’.
60g will comfortably fill 20 square meters of land.
Full instructions on the parcel. In short, sow the seeds into weed-free soil when the soil has warmed up from mid April.
The mix includes Eschscholzia, Cosmos, Larkspur, Cornflowers, Borage, Phacelia, Nigella and Calendula.”
I have used probably about three inches of compost over the first bed and simply broadcast sown the sixty grams of seeds evenly over the surface and raked it in. In this case the rain is on our side. One big disadvantage of sowing into a thick layer of compost is the fact that it can dry out quickly. I am hoping the roots get their rooty act together and go down through the compost into the top soil where they will have fun and frolicks with the water they will find there. The compost will also stay a little warmer than top soil would. We sowed the bed up on the 3rd. That is one week ago. I would hope to see some signs of life in another week…but that might be a little optimistic…usually I wouldn’t sow outside for another week or so.
I may add some extra plants to one of the beds…perhaps a sunflower or two…maybe some Rudbeckia for some late summer warmth but one of the beds I will leave exactly as the bee mix intended so we can determine if we have the mix amounts right.
In other news. The marina plot is still pretty much under water and the pots of germinated seedlings that I left on the raised ground have been bashed about by badgers. The badgers may turn out to be something of a Nemesis but as Flash points out, they were there first and they have bigger teeth than us. I’m also going to make a sizeable broadcast sowing into the marina plot using a very similar method to the church beds but with lots more guest appearances from other annuals. One of the unforeseen issues of the rain has been that we can’t collect the tons of well rotted down horse manure from our chum’s field because the field is far too waterlogged to get any vehicles across and this looks like it may stay that way for many weeks to come. This means spending money on buying compost (As we are once again using ‘no dig’ over rampant Couch grass…God hasn’t glysophated the marina patch.) Buying in compost is where ‘no dig’ really falls down…the figures just don’t add up. I can get away with it because I am Northern Europe’s most infamous flower seed merchant who is looked over by the Goddess Flora….but for most folk this would just be far too expensive. For instance, the marina beds are costing £160 each in compost. This is a gift from us to our community and we have no problem footing the bill but…£160 for twenty square meters is a bit ouchy.
I think it’s important to point out that buying in compost will drive out any ecological gains of ‘no dig’. I really can’t see how the carbon saved by not digging remains higher than the carbon created manufacturing and delivering/collecting the large amounts of compost needed in the first year. Personally I don’t get too wrapped up in the hype. There is generally some digging anyway when plants or vegetables are removed from ‘no dig’ plots……but ‘no dig’ is great for Instagram ‘likes’. ;)
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Kindest regards
Higgers and Flash. :)