[WelliesParticipant]

I didn’t know about the methyl bromide treated ones. I shall look out for those. We have had hundreds here. They all disintegrate and rot very quickly here in wet Pembrokeshire so I don’t think the majority are treated at all.
I have given up trying to use wooden pallets for storing things on. They disintegrate. I have just had a pallet amnesty and gathered them all up and spent two days solid chopping them all up into a mountain of firewood.

[WelliesParticipant]

The Christmas invasion is over and I now have a bag of garlic in my hand. A mixture if solent white and merlot apparently.
Should I plant them individually or in clumps of 4 or 5?
I think I have read or seen one of your videos showing this, although maybe it was onions in groups of 4 or 5 ?

[WelliesParticipant]

I looked it up. That is an interesting idea. :o)

[WelliesParticipant]

What are soil blockers ?

[WelliesParticipant]

Thanks Charles.
It would be far easier to spread it around where the heap is than shift it a hundred metres into the next field.

[WelliesParticipant]

I had a 7 tonne load of cow muck / bedding delivered by a farmer friend. I decided against using it on my veg areas after learning about aminopyralid. It is still in a big heap waiting for me to spread it on a grazing area instead of the veg areas.
I did ask my friend about aminopyralid in any of his farm chemicals he uses. He told me the names of the two chemicals he uses. I found the technical details of these on the respective web sites and tried to determine if they contained aminopyralid. The information is there but in a very complicated format that requires you to have a phd in chemistry to understand. I couldn’t make sense of it all and just assumed there was a chance it does contain aminopyralid. I think the manufacturers hide the “bad news” within overly complicated documents so that most people don’t understand it but they have complied with their legal obligations.

[WelliesParticipant]

Charles / Derek.
I shall get it in the ground asap. Christmas / relatives invasion are happening for a couple of days at the moment. I planted some garlic last year and it was all destroyed by an unknown pest that kept removing any green that grew so I shall net over them. We do have the odd pigeon still and a few rabbits.

[WelliesParticipant]

Where are you in the uk?
We are in Pembrokeshire.

[WelliesParticipant]

Where are you in the uk?
We are in Pembrokeshire.

[WelliesParticipant]

Hi Ron,
That is very generous. I would love to give it a go.
I don’t know if I can send you a message, that isn’t public on here. I shall see if I can figure that out. Cheers.
Rob

[WelliesParticipant]

Charles, Thank you for the reply.
We (my two boys and I) started building the heap up today. We had another heap of grass to use before getting to the stuff in the dumper but we measured the temperature inside the dumper bucket just out of interest. Its at 70 Degrees C only a fork depth down. It could be even hotter in the middle.
We shall get it layered up in the heap tomorrow.

[WelliesParticipant]

On tuesday and wednesday I got about 2 cubic metres of grass strimmings, maybe three or four cubic metres before being stomped into the dumper bucket. It has been in there four days so is starting to go grey, compost and get hot.
I am just wondering if I can do about 2″ straw, 3″ grass, 2″ wet part decomposed leaves, cardboard and repeat to build up a compost pile?
I also have heaps of 4 month old cow muck and mucky bedding on pallets I can also add.
I am just wondering if I can use some of these leaves up and increase my winter compost quantity.

[WelliesParticipant]

Hi Rachid,
I am starting our big veg area too. I did my back in concreting the polytunnel legs so yesterday sat on my old jcb and leveled out the big heaps of topsoil I had previously dumped all over the area.
This is on rough pasture grass and the soil has many stones and rocks.
My plan….
Level(ish) out the top soil heaps (including awkward huge lumps of tough grass).
Scratch around with a fork over the whole area and pick out the bigger stones and rocks.
Black plastic the area using the stones to hold it down.
Concurrently make loads of compost.
In the spring drag the plastic along about 6ft and apply lots of compost and cardboard paths.
Plant this up.
Keep making compost and once I have enough compost for another bed, drag the plastic along again and create another bed.

Thats roughly my plan.

We live just down from an electrical store warehouse so each week I go there and take all the cardboard they have. It is becoming a bit of a liability at the moment as it is building up rather than being put down but it will get used.

Rob

[WelliesParticipant]

Hi Jan,
They are pretty damp and quite a lot of it was part rotted when we gathered them.
I think I shall add some big cardboard lids for the bags to keep the surface from drying out, conversely stop them from getting too wet.

[WelliesParticipant]

A friend of mine does all his veg planting in beds on concrete.
He buys 3″x9″ timbers 16ft long and then makes rectangles 16ft x 5ft and 18″ deep.
He is 74 years old so does some of his digging with a mini digger, which is a good point of having the concrete to clatter around on.
He has great results but he does buy in lots of compost and is on hand for watering most of the time. He just does the traditional spring to autumn season so they sit idle over the winter so I can’t tell you if it works in the cold and wet.
We are in Pembrokeshire with a lot of rain.

There are worms in his beds, which presumably have arrived from the compost he has made and then have multiplied, but I wouldn’t say it is a ecologically balanced soil. They are just huge boxes of compost.

[Author]

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