Prepping the beds

A break in the monsoon rains gave me the opportunity to finally sort out my veg beds. I've managed to grow a nice crop of dandelions! After an hour or so of weeding the beds with a garden fork, I also whizzed round the rest of the garden which gave me a big blister on my right palm from using the hand trowel. I managed to fill two big bags of garden waste, luckily there is a collection scheduled next week (thankfully Hackney takes this stuff off your hands).



Since the sunshine continued I also cleared out my compost bin and the scrappy heap of all-sorts (a mixture of woody clippings, old bits of timber boards, a pallet, guinea pig litter, ...). Injury number two was a nail that protruded from a board I moved and which I managed to drive into my thumb (left hand this time).

The compost from the bin itself was not a great success: compostable bags obviously need much longer to disintegrate and I had to pull them out from the usable stuff. Messy business. In future I won't put them in anymore, not worth the bother. The scrap heap yielded quite a bit of compost at the bottom of it, thanks to the guinea pig litter. It now is a bit tidier too but it could do with removing completely, however I am not sure how I can dispose of it.

I had enough muck to spread onto the veg patches and dig it in. It's still a bit to horrible to plant anything out, even the lettuce, beetroot and carrots would find it a bit too chilly at the moment. Better to wait for a couple of weeks and hope the weather improves. Can't wait till the planting starts!