My plantation

20 January 2008

I was given one of these fantastically menacing double hoes for Christmas. You really shouldn’t stand in front of or behind me when I’m wielding it. Or rather I shouldn’t wield it when people are standing in front of or behind me. I gave it its first taste of soil yesterday and churned up a section of my patch, while keeping (relatively) clean, standing on the grass. I’d gone out to see how my compost bag was doing and, since I was wearing nice clothes that were clean on that morning, I thought it best to decant my rotting material into another bag to churn it all up a bit. Suzy came out to see what I was up to as I’d absentmindedly abandoned her indoors. While I fiddled about with the compost she used my hoe to extend what I’d done and then went round the other side of Juniper Lodge to do what she could reach from the grass there – and in so doing, discovered the delights of impaling one’s behind on the hawthorn hedge with every movement.

This afternoon I continued my hoeing and digging work and went over the whole patch. I then emptied my sack of rotting stuff, scattering it across the surface of the soil. I’d incorporated two bags of coffee grounds in that sack of stuff, so it all smelled quite good. I then sprinkled two more bags of grounds across the whole lot. Suddenly my vegetable patch smelled like the Starbucks from whence the grounds came.

Then it was just a question of digging the patch over again, turning the mulch into the soil for the worms and their friends to chew on. I’ve got one bag of coffee grounds left over, which will be dug in along with another one at a later date. According to my back muscles, that will be 2015 at the earliest.