Sunday, 3 March 2019
At home
I returned to my compost project, once again a bit worried about being a bad neighbor by running The Toy intermittently for hours to chop up dry compost materials for faster decomposition. Although I had an idea for a different project of the day, I noticed my neighbors to the east (near the bins) seemed to be gone and so I did all of the noisy work in their absence. When I next see them, I’ll ask if The Toy is loud. They might not even notice its gentle buzzing, especially when compared to the local pressure washers and forklifts.
Bin three gave me a disappointingly low volume of sifted compost, just this much:
It was enough to mulch my irises by the pond.
Most of bin three got piled onto bin four….
…with some saved to add back in with fresh material.
I even found some whole apples that will please my canine friends next door.
After I had all the new material chopped and layers (green and brown mixed), bins one and two look quite promising.
A look from the back side reveals some woody material underneath so it won’t be all delicious siftings.
While adding my bit of mulch to the irises, I noticed the small pond was so low that the tops of the planting baskets showed.
This was most disconcerting. Then I remembered evaporation. Google informed me that even in winter, especially when the air is as dry as it’s been this week, evaporation of an inch or more per week is normal.
Fortunately, a rain barrel with a faucet is fairly close to the ponds.
(You can watch my beloved Christine Walkden speaking about water butts right here. )
The pond looked grand topped up with rain water and with a third papyrus added at the back.
I pondered adding one more pond, inspired by an episode of The Great British Garden Revival in which Charlie Dimmock demonstrated a simple pond idea.
Other than ordering and awaiting the liner, Allan and I could do this in a day, I bet.
My idea is for it to go here:
It would tie in to the look of the water boxes…
…which are just across a piece of lawn.
I like the way Charlie’s plan includes a bog garden at one end.
This will have to wait at least a week! We probably have to go to work tomorrow through Wednesday, and then my dear friend Seattle Carol will be visiting for three days.
In the garden:
Meanwhile, Allan had gone questing for tadpoles in the ponds along the meander line south of our property.
The only pond that is year round is the one behind The Lost Garden two doors down.
I don’t mind that he didn’t find any tadpoles yet. I am interested in the claim that if you build a pond, frogs will find it, and I sort of want to wait and see how long that takes.
Tonight, I am going to have a look at Christine Walkden’s more recent show, Glorious Gardens From Above, even though I should be checking out my seed arrivals and placing an order of much desired plants with Annie’s Annuals. My iPad tells me that my screen time is up.
Little does it know that a couple of those days were eight or more hours of The Great British Garden Revival.
Here I go down another rabbit hole.
Here is Christine …. Within the next month, we will each turn 64.
I do love her so!
Oh, OH, look where she is going to land!
I am in heaven.
Beth was 91 when this segment was filmed; the broadcast was in 2014.
What treasures these women are.
