worms – ffiftypluses

Fruitless Summer

Published on September 12, 2024 by FfiftyplusesLeave a comment

Well, not quite fruitless but weird. We grow food in our garden. Usually. Thus summer in the UK the weather has been very odd. I know the soild was prepared. Co.post had been composting. We have a worm based bin where the little critters push the goodness out through the holes in the bin. Extra cow poo was added. The ground was turned over but boy have We had a lousy crop.

The lettuce was eaten alive by pests despite all natural deterrents deployed as usual. The broccoli never made past 3 inches because of hungry slugs and caterpillars. The beetroot have done ok but still on the small size. We had 4 or 5 meals from the spuds where we usually have double that. Whilst there are tomatoes on the vine they are not ripening. We’ve done nothing differently but the weather…..

I’m still hopeful that there will be peppers. No chilli this year, we didn’t get any. I think I’ve sat out once, eaten an outdoor meal once. It’s been lousy.

Don’t get me wrong, there have been sunny days, but few and far between. Yes, we go on about the weather in the UK. Even by UK standards, this year has been strange. This morning ing it rained heavily. Now the sun is shining and there are clouds overhead. Yesterday was cloudy where my parents ts live and sunny where I live less than 50 miles away.

Usually, I have more blackberries that I can use for jam. This year, nothing. I guess it happens. We have a warm, comfortable home and enough to eat. I have nothing to complain about. I’m just intrigued as to what’s going on.

Spring Into Action

Published on March 25, 2023 by FfiftyplusesLeave a comment

Well the clocks change tonight. Tomorrow we will be a)up late or b)up on time and grumpy. Twas ever thus. Today, however, is the planting of the food crops. To be fair the rhubarb stays out all year and garlic gets planted in November but all those delicate veg need to go outside now. Today we plant onions and broccoli and peas and beans, beetroot and carrot but only for the tiny shelter/greenhouse (only it’s not a glasshouse) with just a few things directly into the earth. Lettuce, this year, is going in the chest height herb bed to attempt to avoid slugs.

Last years food crop was amazing considering we only completed the raised beds in late April, so this year we have organised a bit better and hope to have more food available. We also took the opportunity to put some fruit bushes in February, though I doubt those will fruit this year. A gooseberry and a blackcurrant. Hopefully the last frost has been and gone but in the UK who knows.

The compost has been fed through the winter. We have a vermicompost system buried into the raised bed thanks to Subpod (no money has changed hands) a New Zealand based company. The nice thing about worm based compost is that it doesn’t smell. You don’t need to spread it either because this system has holes for the little fellows to wriggle in and out taking the nutrients with them.

I’m not a garden expert, I’ve just realised that we can make more from what we’ve got… cost of living… pension.. blah. Between last years jam, sell by date boxes from the supermarket for soup and pickles, even marmalade. We compost anything that’s too far gone and use ash from the wood burner to add carbon to the soil. It’s all going rather well.

New Years Eve

Published on December 31, 2022 by FfiftyplusesLeave a comment

It’s been a busy year. Lots of pre booked and in waiting post (lol) pandemic fun to be had now we have been allowed out. That said, gigs were missed due to covid and bad weather this year, too, but not the trip down under. The world looks a little different. Some people didn’t make it this far, yet others were born. Same as any year and not at all like anything I’ve experienced before. I trust that the future will be just as unpredictable as the past was when it, too, was the future. My best wishes to one and all. I’ll keep trolling on about my stuff here, and who knows, maybe you’ll stay with me. I wish anyone reading all the best for the future however long it lasts.

I’ve got worms

Published on February 11, 2022February 11, 2022 by FfiftyplusesLeave a comment

They arrived today in a large bag along with some coconut coir. To be clear these are composting worms. Apparently ordinary garden worms aren’t so hungry and therefore take longer to make compost. As ‘project retirement’ moves on apace we are having raised beds and a general garden tidy up. Brexit Britain and all that we took the decision to grow some veg and keep our cost down resulting in some heavy duty garden work being undertaken.

There is now a 10 foot long a metre wide (yes, I’m mixing my measurements) and tucked into the corner is a little composting pod from Subpod (no they’re not paying me). Its a buried, worm based, composting system which is supposed to be less smelly and more efficient than a normal compost heap. The brick sized lump of coconut soaked in water and crumbled into the box topped with a yummy layer of cardboard and a banana skin then in go the worms all tucked up under a biodegradable blanket. Lid closed and, I am told, it can now be ignored for a week.

There’s something comforting about the idea of having the ability to grow food. I know its already a wonderful thing to have an outdoor space as the past two years have proved. There’s also a memory wrapped up in there. Both my grandfathers worked on the land. One raised turf for bowling greens and sheep for the table, the other grew dahlias and chrysanthemums for market. I spent many summer afternoons helping to round up sheep, tote bales of hay or sitting on a Victorian garden bench with my grandma bashing the stems of the flowers so they could be put in water before shipping.

I knew it was spring as a child because the rotovator man would come. My grandparents lived next door and the coming of the rotovator man meant grandad was preparing the soil for the spring planting. why own a machine that would sit in the shed for all but one day a year. The vegetable garden sat in what had been the base of a commercial greenhouse and would provide enough veg for my grandparents, auntie and uncle and our family too. if they had lost me in the summer months I’d be stealing peas straight from the plant. There were other greenhouses (glasshouses for my American cousins) with tomatoes and flowers for commercial sale. it wasn’t a bad way to grow up. We even had a Jersey cow for fresh milk. I can see my grandad now, cap turned backwards milking her and my grandma hand churning butter on the kitchen table.

I moved to the city to study. My once tidy vegetable patch (I had my own little area to manage) became a fish pond for my parents. Gardening seemed fruitless task (pardon the pun). Funny how the wheel turns.