Action Packed Greenies!

Fascinating Musings

Season 1 – Friday – 07/04/23

Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.
John Lennon

Music – Mission

Environmental

As is sometimes the same way of things – my weeks of late are jampacked and more so when the weather is clear. This week so far has had a mixed bag of climate goodies. We have experienced dry days with blue skies and warm weather interspersed with rain and cold, wet days with a dash of blue and colder nights.

At the start of this week – Sunday and Monday, l was working flat out at the allotment involved in various projects, whilst Tuesday, l had a wood delivery and Suze and l were finally working with the seed planting for the allotment.

Wednesday, l was down at Gazen Salts during the day, writing content during the afternoon and then at a meeting in the evening. Thursday and l had another delivery arriving which is for use today next door in Edwards Garden, where Suze and l will be making a footpath and writing more content for the blog.

Edward booked us last week to create a footpath across his lawn and asked if l would order the materials in that l needed which l did. It will be the first time that Suze and l have ever laid a path from fresh, so that will be interesting.

This morning Mike and l were taking stuff down to plot 17 for me to use over the Easter weekend. I have to lay the foundations for the rainwater harvesting station and finish off the final levels and rooves of the two new worm farms.

Suze will plant garlic and shallot bulbs in the raised beds [which are late], strawberries, and repotting the blueberries, goji, and cherry bushes. We also have to plant the orchard trees and start work on the foundations of the polytunnel. The latter HAS to be erected before the end of April.

In addition, we also have to work on the Butchery garden again and repot all of the hebes and skimmias, which we discovered had plant rot a few weeks back. But poor weather combined with trying to arrange for the new pots to be delivered and getting the new soil deliveries in has been hard work.

I had managed to catch up to what l needed to catch up with at the allotment at the beginning of this week, but you are only caught up for a short time before delays hit you again.

Things change all the time, and a few weeks back, Suze declared that she wasn’t sure about being a gardening partner to Earthly Comforts despite expressing an interest in it previously, which threw a spanner into the works somewhat!

She wants to be involved in the allotment and assist me in the gardening, BUT the problem is that l am not the primary green gardener but a primary brown gardener. I am the grunt to Suze when working green, and she would be my assistant if l needed to work compost for someone else. The latter will not happen mostly because composting is one-person oriented. Together we complimented both sides of gardening – the green and the brown.

She will assist me; however, Suze wants to become involved in property, which is fascinating but does baffle me how she leapt from gardening to property developer. Hey ho – we will still have a few joint clients, and those will be in Sandwich only.

But l must sort the marketing out once l get a breathing space. It will be achieved, but l have had to wait for various administrations to finalise from Companies House in London. Last week l received news that Earthly Comforts is now Limited. Yesterday l received my UTR – Unique Taxpayer Reference, meaning l am now self-employed. I now need to get my public liability sorted.

My next step is to establish the sole trading side of the business, which is to reflect now my side of gardening, which will be composting. So the company will be “Earthly Comforts – The Compost Doctor” You don’t need an explanation for that, l feel. In addition to green gardening in Sandwich, my main job will be working with and repairing compost.

One of the proposed new roles for Gazen Salts is the position of Social Media, and one of my ideas was for Notice Board Promotion. It is something l would like to chase down and be responsible for as it means l can advertise Earthly Comforts within and raise funds for the charity. This particular role would mean l don’t have to be exclusively involved with Gazen Salts every week at ground level.

Something else that has also come around is an invitation to another volunteering project, a new community gardening concept for Sandwich. This is quite an exciting prospect, which l wish to explore further and will do so over the next few weeks.

It will be a completely new set-up almost opposite the reserve on the other side of the railway tracks. Not far from where l have the allotment either. This would allow me to explore an avenue l was looking to introduce along the backyard gardening concept l wrote of a few weeks back.

But this is something quite exciting as a venture also.

Sometime before the end of this month, l also need to move the three worm herds from Willow down to the allotment. This is sadly not just a case of digging out and moving the worms, but digging out, sieving and then moving worms only ensuring that the vermicast is left here, but the soil is moved there.

It’s both complex and complicated, but it must be done to change the direction of worm farming from domestic to wild herding. I hope the weather is kinder this month, as there is so much to achieve. Again.

Well, as they say, it’s better to be busy than not.

Above is the town of Sandwich. The red triangle is the allotments, the yellow triangle is the Jubilee Centre, the purple circle is where l am and the pink circle is Gazen Salts – so everything is connected and close by.

Above is the Jubilee Centre which is located at the back of the Boatmans Hill Cemetary and off jubilee Road and the grounds out the back are to be converted into active community gardens.