Garden – December – 1 – Earthly Comforts

Willow Garden is a series exclusive to the Earthly Comforts blog only.

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Main Image – Willow Garden Wednesday 7th December

See Stage Four Preparations

Finally the new worm farms are all finished and the back of the garden looks a lot tidier and thankfully more efficient.

The last tower farm was harvested off Tuesday 06th December and all the content was transferred to the new farm. Hard graft from Suze and myself from 9.30am to 5.00pm and finishing off in the dark with torches.

It was chaos this morning regarding the tidy-up but manageable mess.

The Willow garden is now around 98% finished, and there are just a few bulbs to be planted this week. However, the big job at hand since the 21st of November was breaking down the three verticle worm towers and transferring the soils and residents into the new horizontal farming setups, which we finalised yesterday. I finished the tidy-up and lid construction today whilst Suze was over at friends helping them construct a new shed.

Tuesday was a full-on day. Farming and harvesting with the tower farms was always a challenging task. The new farms will be much easier to work on because they are not as deep and because, unlike the verticle towers, the new farm beds are horizontal. Soil and worm harvesting will become much smoother.

Yesterday Suze and l started work just after half nine in the morning and managed to get the worms and the soils transferred into the set up in the dark with just a couple of torches. We needed it to be done as we had perhaps fifteen thousand assorted worms and eggs in a vast bin we didn’t want in the house overnight if it could be avoided.

The decision was made around four in the afternoon and nearing the end to plough on and get it finally finished, which is what we did. The titivation and the lid construction l could do the next day, which l did today.

Now all that is to be done is to transfer the bagged garden wastes, compost soils and vermicasts down to the allotment with the final bits and bots, and we will no longer have to worry about the worms or the garden at home for the remainder of this year.

The worms will be fed on their winter schedules [once every ten days], but they can be left to their own devices until the end of March or early April, which is when the first harvest will be.

This is a huge win. The rains were with us for most of Monday, but the forecasts got yesterday and today spot on – cold and dry, and l can work quickly with that.

Now Suze and l can concentrate on working with the allotment, and once we get these last bits down to plot 17, we can transfer all soils into the raised beds. If we are lucky weather-wise, we will have that done towards the end of the month. It is the last main task to be achieved.

Getting the Willow Garden completed is great news on so many levels but also because it means tomorrow when we start our new gardening job we don’t have to worry about our own garden not being complete. The new job is between 1 – 2 hours work per week and it pays £20 per hour so it’s a nice little earner too.

16 Assorted bags of soils and garden wastes waiting to be transferred down to the allotment sometime this weekend raised off the ground and covered to keep it dry in case the forecasters get it wrong and it rains heavily again and becomes too heavy to shift.

Thanks for Reading – See you next Season

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9 thoughts on “Garden – December – 1”

Your ambition level is astonishing! Even at my best, I was never the level of dedicated. Congratulations on all the work you are doing.

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The Autistic Composter says:

8th Dec 2022 at 7:54 am

Hey Marilyn many thanks – only this morning Suze and l were saying we just don’t do things by half measure.

Hahaha it matters not that we are walking around in a hobbled state like we are both 150 years of age from all the bending over, at least the job is done 🙂

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Wonderful accomplishment! This must have been a great relief for you both.

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The Autistic Composter says:

8th Dec 2022 at 7:52 am

Hey Betty, yes we are both relieved that this can now be put to bed.

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