Sunday 7 November 2010

Poo hunting

This weekend I have been hunting poo. Having heard the advice of my experienced gardener friend, Dave, I am now under the impression that adding manure to my compost heap is an absolute MUST. 
My in-laws advised me, when we were staying with them last weekend, that there was a local farm that would sell us manure at 50p a bag (it is The North) but that it would stink the car out as we stopped off at a posh hotel on the way home. My parents helped out by pointing out every cow-pat and dung heap possible when we went for a walk earlier in the week. With such supportive family, how could I go wrong?
I went poo-hunting today. My husband stayed at home, not declaring but, obviously thinking that my enthusiasm for the garden had reached new lows. Virtuously avoiding the giant stinking heaps of dung that were obviously awaiting muck-spreading by the farmer, I cycled the bridleways of Hertfordshire looking for poo.
I had some lows - I lost my pink trowel (bought as a moving into our first home together present by hubby) and had to cycle back for half a mile in order to find it. I squinted and scraped at a few piles of mud, unsure whether they were poo or not. I hid on a farm track, waiting for a BMW to pass, hoping they wouldn't squash a pile of poo I had my eye on. Worst of all, I took a short-cut home across a bumpy field and lost a quarter of my treasure.
However. I collected poo. It was sunny (if cold). And when I got home hubby was glad to see me, because I had the recipe for dinner.
The picture below shows the halloween efforts (including f-in-l's drill) and today's poo treasure. 


Other gardening moments I've enjoyed today have included:
  • scrapping the impatien and aster cuttings that have died because I made rooky errors (namely taking flowering cuttings and covering them)
  • taking new aster cuttings to replace the ones that died,
  • weeding the front garden, 
  • tidying the front garden of leaves,
  • digging up tired summer bedding for the compost heap,
  • potting up the clematis that appeared to die earlier in the year, but may well come with us to our new home.. 
  • taking rose and ostespurmum cuttings.
Having wrestled a bike, two chairs, a rake, a workbench, 80l of vermiculite (approx), a lawnmower, and a lawnmower bucket out of our wendy house, I begged hubby for a big shed at our next house - he agreed - hurrah!

For those of you who were wondering what the leaf was a few weeks ago that I found in my garden and put on my blog, the photo above shows it was an osteospurmum. Rose cuttings (that I've done a bit wrong, as I was meant to leave a leaf on them) are also shown. Still in the pursuit of a cheap and flowery back garden in pots next year. 
Compost heap week on week (I was away last week)