Trip to Paris

Having thought my wife hated Paris I got a real surprise for my 40th birthday when she presented me with a 2 day trip. Apparently, some seven years ago I had told her I had never been and would love to go so she started saving and lying at every opportunity, telling me what an over priced dive it is and how I'd hate it, not least because a cup of tea is about £5 (she knows how to wound me). Being such a "fan" of cities (dirty horrible places) I fell for it hook line and sinker.

Anyway, this made the present a real shock and in the week before setting off I found it very hard to get round the fact that she didn't hate it at all and was, if anything, more excited about the trip than I was (and I was really looking forward to it so that made her fairly excited).

So, on Tuesday morning we all (kids as well) set off to Manchester airport and caught an Air France flight to the "city of love". The flight was good (by good I mean I didn't scream or stop breathing once). The landing was a little hairy, but only by my standards - nobody else even realised it had landed!

It was a little disappointing to get there and realise we had left behind a glorious sunny day and arrived in a downpour. The day got no better as most of the Metro was on strike for the day and it took 3 hours to get to the hotel. It appears to be something the French do regularly and this time they were striking to complain about the fact there hadn't been a strike for over a week. Actually it was something to do with the economy, and when the price of a cup of tea was nearer £7 I think I see what they mean :)

We eventually got to the hotel which was a plush 4-star jobby and outwardly very nice (by outwardly I mean the inside finishes: from the outside it truly was ugly and I realised why it wasn't shown on the web site - it is the one made of red Lego in the picture).

It was nice enough though and the staff were amazingly helpful and friendly. And boy did they put up with a lot - there was a Japanese bloke giving them hell every time I walked past the desk and a multitude of Americans stepped in whenever he stopped to draw breath. Little things let the hotel down though, like the fact the computers were made by Apple and crashed a lot (actually that bit was amusing, as was the French keyboard) and that the swimming pool was shut for refurbishment. The travel agency could and should have told us about that before taking all my wife's money and upsetting the children. All this made me live up to my "Victor Meldrew" persona so the rest of the family made fun of me a lot, so I calmed myself down with a beer, purposely not looking at how much said beer was costing, or the fact it was Heineken.

As it turned out we were probably far too knackered for swimming after all the walking we did; after dropping off our bags we went to Notre Dame and then a boat ride down the Seine, getting off at the Eiffel Tower and walking back to the hotel.

That evenings meal was taken at the hotel and the food was nice, but nowhere near nice enough to cost £85 for the four of us - I thought I was going to need oxygen to get over paying that one and I paid by credit card because I couldn't bring myself to pay in cash.

The next day we walked to the Eiffel tower and got the lift to the second floor, which has amazing views (see the pictures). We then queued for about an hour to get the lift to the very top, which wasn't nearly as amazing as I thought it should be but well worth it all the same. My legs did have a strange jelly like feel to them and my peripheral vision was a bit blurry if I turned too quick so I'm guessing there was a touch of vertigo kicking in :) We used the steps down from the second floor and that in itself was amazing because you had time to appreciate the views and what an intricate (and extremely sturdy) structure it is.

Once we got down from that we did the double-decker train of the RER and then the Metro to Sacre Coeur, a place surrounded by shops (never a favourite of mine unless they sell CD's, books or electronic stuff). Another good view and probably our cheapest meal (a mere £35 for the four of us - a pricey burger, but I was getting used to the cost by now and was no longer having to pretend that Euros aren't real money). After a quick run round Sacre Coeur and seeing the artists square we headed off to the Louvre where Tamsyn and Zoe feigned complete disinterest so they could go off shopping. Christopher and I loved it, right up until the point where we got lost and I thought my feet were about to fall off from all the walking. What an amazing place though! Even the miserable Mona Lisa woman was fairly awe-inspiring - not because it's a good picture (it's actually very ordinary and dull) but because of the history and how famous it was. I was quite shocked at how awed I was by it to be honest, though that was eclipsed by some of the other pieces of art and history on display. Christopher and I decided we could spend at least another four days there but we'd need a GPS to find our way around or out.

As it was we managed to get out by accident and we crawled back to the hotel for a meal and in time to see Manchester United get bounced out of the final, something that truly made Christopher's day.

The flight back was again very easy and I even managed to keep my eyes open for the landing. Things are truly looking up in the flying department I think (I can say that now I'm back on land with little prospect of flying again for ages).

Pictures of the trip can be seen at http://www.flickr.com/photos/simonsherlock/sets/72157618876634717/ and more will be added when I get round to uploading some of the children's pictures.

The main thing that did strike me was just how like London it all was - except for the cigarettes everywhere (amazing how quick we got used to not being enveloped in smoke over here while they continue to smoke like tyre fires over there). I also wondered briefly whether it would be cheaper for a Parisian to fly over here and eat out every night than eat out over there but it was quickly pointed out that they would probably rather die than eat British food, which made me chuckle a little.

Using Bokashi to grow vegetables in pots

For the last few years I have grown a few vegetables in pots and last year I used Bokashi in the base and was astonished with the results. I had cherry tomatoes continually from mid-July to November and my dwarf beans were also superb.

People often wonder what to do with Bokashi once it has had it's 2 weeks fermenting and the majority either add it to their worm bins or just dump it in a compost bin/heap. By using it to layer the bottom of a large pot that you then plant some veg in means it works right where you need it.

I've just potted on this years cherry tomatoes. I started with a layer of normal potting compost in the bottom, though there's probably no reason you couldn't just start with the Bokashi.



I then added about 3 inches of Bokashi, before filling to about 3/4's full with organic peat free grow bag compost.



The idea here is that by leaving a quarter of the pot empty you can top-dress with either vermicompost, compost from your bin/heap or even just more grow bag. The joy of vermicompost and compost is it will act as a mulch during the hotter days. Vermicompost has the added benefit of being extremely high in nutrients as well, and therefore ideal for hungry tomatoes.



Once more established these plants (and all my veg) will be fed with a good dose of worm tea throughout the growing season.

I also planted up a runner bean in the same way. These should probably be grown outside but this one will be grown in the greenhouse. I did this a few years ago and had a surprisingly good crop, but this will is the first time I have done it with a Bokashi base to the pot. I'll post the (hopefully pleasing) results.

Emptying the bottom layer of your worm bin

In many of the discussions on worm bins people ask about either adding the next layer or how do they go about emptying the bottom layer (or even knowing when it's ready to empty).

I generally empty mine when the top layer is almost full (generally twice a year with my family) and I try and do it in the Spring and the Autumn i.e. while the weather is still reasonable.

A common misconception is that all the worms will have vacated the bottom layer and moved up. I've owned a wormery since 1998 and I have never yet known this to be the case - there are always a few of the stubborn ones quite happy in the bottom layer.



So how do you separate them from the compost?

You have a few choices:

• The first is don't bother. You can just empty the whole bottom layer in your border or compost bin where the few stragglers and eggs will either live in the garden, become live food for the birds or in the case of the compost bin carry on regardless. I like the last option because they can then colonise your compost and thereby speed up that process as well.
  
  
• You can empty the whole lot into a barrow or onto a plastic sheet and hand pick them out, either adding them to your wormery again or even box them up and head off fishing. The choice is yours.
  
  
• Put the bottom layer on the top with the lid off. Scrape away and remove compost until you come across some worms and then leave it for a bit. Worms hate the light and will burrow down into the compost that remains. Repeat this process until they have all burrowed into the layer below, by which time you will have harvested all the compost.
  Be warned though that this is a lengthy process.
  

When you remove the bottom layer you will almost definitely find that the sump is full of worms. Many beginners panic and worry about worms getting in the sump but they always do.

It's yet another reason to make sure you empty the sump regularly so that they don't drown.

They can and will climb out when they are ready but you're very lucky indeed if you never find any there.



As you can see from the pictures both my bins have plenty of worms in the sump. So while we're emptying the bottom layer make sure you empty the contents of the sump (drain it of liquid first though) into the top layer. It tidies the sump up as well as helping establish worms in the new top layer.

So now you've emptied the bottom layer and cleaned out the sump you can place the now empty tray to the top of the bin.

When adding this new layer be careful to make sure that it fits snugly. If there's too much stuff in there then a) you'll be squashing them with the new one and b) they can get out of the sides.

I just add the layer and start adding waste - they will move up when they are ready i.e. they have eaten most of the layer below and fancy some of the new stuff.

I guess it wouldn't harm to take some of the bottom layer and add it to the new one, especially if it's quite full and stops the new layer fitting snugly. Definitely add the moisture mat (or a layer of cardboard) as the darkness will further attract them into the new layer.



As you can see from the pictures, adding what's in the sump can make the wormery look quite wet and soggy so make sure you add a fair amount of shredded/scrunched paper and/or cardboard to help dry things out.

You can never have enough paper in a worm bin, something that people often forget. It helps keep things dry and adds a god dose of carbon. The worms will munch their way through it as fast (if not faster) than the food scraps and the resultant compost will be of a higher standard.

I've won an award!

Turns out that I have won the 'The Bokashi Backup Award' in the The Rubbish Diet Awards 2009.

I'd like to thank Almost Mrs Average for the honour - I'm really pleased that some of my advice and help was able to be used in her extremely successful attempts at getting us to slim down our bins by reducing, re-using, recycling and generally buying more carefully.

I'm off to celebrate now with a nice cup of tea ...

Creating a raised bed for vegetables

For the last few years I have grown a few vegetables in pots: spinach, tomatoes, dwarf beans and even a single runner bean plant. They have all done well, as have the odd lettuce and rocket.

With my small garden I've relied on these pots (and the greenhouse), while keeping the main garden for lawn and borders full of flowers, as well as shrubs for attracting birds and insects (it's also nice to look at).


This year though I have decided to expand the vegetable production and will be utilising two raised beds by the greenhouse for this purpose. I purchased a link-a-bord kit from Wiggly Wigglers and have today set it up. The kit itself took all of 5 minutes to assemble and is made from recycled uPVC. I think I would have preferred wood but this kit is light, simple to assemble and won't rot.

I didn't fancy the back breaking job of digging up the turf so laid some cardboard on top of the grass. This should stop the grass growing through yet still allow the bed to drain well. By the time the season is over the grass should be dead and the cardboard rotted enough to just be dug over like a normal plot (well that's the theory anyway).

Next came a bucket of Bokashi for the base followed by a layer of home made compost from my third bin. Both these will add nutrients to the soil as well as help stop the soil drying out. I did exactly this in my pots last year and had the best crop of veg ever, even though our summer was atrocious, so I'm sure that it will help just as much this time around.

Finally I topped it off with some John Innes multi purpose compost as that will be ideal for planting the veg plants into. Once established in this the roots will find their way down to the compost and Bokashi and all the nutrients they contain will keep the plants fed and healthy.

The second raised bed kit is on order and I'll be setting that up next to this giving me quite a bit of growing room. I'm hoping to utilise this room properly once I've read Growing Fruit and Vegetables on a Bed System the Organic Way by Pauline Pears.

Keeping your solitary bees warm in the winter

During the recent cold spell in the UK where temperatures were below freezing for over a week and fell as low as -12C in places I brought in my solitary bee nesting tubes and put them in the fridge to keep them warm (a fridge keeps them at between 3 and 4C, still cool enough to stop them hatching).

Having written about this on the Wiggly Wigglers Facebook group Heather also mentioned it during Podcast 165 so that other people could save their own bees.

During the podcast Richard questions why I would do this so here are my reasons: Bees in the UK (solitary, Bumble bees and honey/hive bees) are suffering a lot in the wild at the moment and disappearing from our gardens at an alarming rate. By putting in these nesters we are encouraging solitary bees, such as the Red and Blue Mason bees, into our gardens thereby saving them the bother of hunting around for suitable nesting sites and encouraging pollination of our plants during the summer. Plus they are amazing to watch, none aggressive and therefore suitable for a garden that also has children.

However, they suffer the effects of the crazy British seasons just the same as anything else. For the last few years they have hatched early only to find there are very few flowers for them and this year we have had the first real Winter in years where it didn't get above freezing for over a week.

So by putting the tubes in the fridge for a few days you actually keep them warm enough to survive the very low temperatures but cold enough not to start hatching in your fridge (and thereby saving me from an almighty talking to from Mrs Sherlock!).

I originally got this idea from Christopher O'Toole, author of "The Red Mason Bee", which is available from Wiggly Wigglers by clicking here.

Although he does state that they can be over-wintered in a shed or greenhouse he also states that a fridge is fine as it keeps them at a constant temperature and stops them emerging too soon into a cold Spring.

HOWEVER, I would recommend only putting them in the fridge when you know the temperature is going to drop very cold i.e. -10C or slightly less if it's for a prolonged spell and even then only for a few days at a time. This is because modern fridges (often with auto-defrost) don't appear to keep the required humidity very well and you run the risk of drying the cocoons out. There is more about this on the Beediverse web site.

Another reason for using your fridge is when Spring looks like it will come early. As mentioned above this then keeps them cool enough not to hatch out too soon. To quote Christopher O'Toole again: "... keep an eye on the weather and check with the long range weather forecasts. About seven to ten days before you think the fine weather will begin, put your bees out on your plot."

Just how quickly does Bokashi break down? - compost bin

Further to Just how quickly does Bokashi break down? the wormery is looking rather wet and miserable after all the rain we have had recently.



Normally I would have added a good dose of shredded paper to help dry it out (as well as add some much needed carbon), but for the purpose of this experiment I haven't so that I can see what is happening with the added Bokashi. However, the temperature recently has dropped considerably, which has slowed everything down and, in true British fashion, it hasn't stopped raining so the whole thing is looking wet and slimy. Rather than hide the Bokashi with shredded paper I have added a Wiggly Wigglers moisture mat in the hope of drying things out a little and giving the worms some much needed warmth so they can continue their job.



I also have a Bokashi bin ready to empty:



and decided to add it to the compost bin so I can compare how that breaks down against within the wormery. Here's the bin before I added the bokashi:



and here it is after:



Let's hope the weather doesn't get too cold over the next few weeks so that we can see some progress...

Bokashi experiment November update

Further to the original post on 19 October 2008 here are a few pictures of the Bokashi that was added to my worm bin.

Here is what the bin looked like when I added the Bokashi about 2 weeks ago:


and this is what it looked like today:


As you can see it doesn't look that much different, until you look a bit closer and see that it is riddled with worms.


What you can't see from the picture is that the layer of waste is also thinner because they have been working their way up nicely, keeping away from the very top because of the colder weather, which has slowed the worms down considerably - you would normally expect them to have been eaten more than this but the weather has changed over the last few weeks and it is a lot colder. I might move one of the bins into the greenhouse so that I can see how much quicker the worms work in warmer conditions, but I worry about a strong sunny day getting them too hot.

Another thing I noticed was the number of fruit flies - it was riddled with them and I had to wait a minute before getting too close as the little blighter's seem to delight in flying up my nose! Normally I would wrap the waste in paper so they would have less chance of getting at it, but for this experiment we need to be able to see so I didn't bother. A couple more weeks of the cold weather and they will all die off anyway...

Just how quickly does Bokashi break down?

Over on the Wiggly Wigglers Facebook group there is a discussion on Bokashi (Bokashi Qs) and a few of us taking part in an experiment to see how quickly finished Bokashi breaks down under certain conditions, whether on a normal compost heap, in a compost bin, in a wormery, dug into the soil or just left out.

I'm adding a finished bin into a wormery and will be keeping a close eye on how long this layer takes to be broken down into useful vermicompost.

So it's 19 October 2008 and I started off with a Bokashi bin that has been fermenting in my green house for the last 2 weeks. Firstly, I emptied the juice into a measuring container and got just over 3/4 pint which was added to a watering can and used for watering the winter pansies that are being brought on in the greenhouse, ready for planting out in a few weeks (once the summer flowers are done, dug up and composted).



As you can see from the picture below I had added a load of shredded paper to the wormery yesterday partly as a base and partly to increase the amount of carbon in the bin. It also helps absorb excess moisture (always a problem in the UK with its incessant rain).



I then added a quarter of the finished bin before placing a large brown envelope over the top to keep things dark.



I'll be checking this weekly to see how quickly it breaks down. One thing we have to remember though is things are getting cooler and the worms will slow down somewhat. It will be interesting (well I guess that may depend on your understanding of the word "interesting") to see how the same experiment works out in the Spring/Summer.

Not Quite Gardeners Question Time

On Friday I travelled down to Ledbury, dropped the family off at some friends and then (with an awful lot of help from Digital Doris, TomTom for short) drove on to Preston-on-Wye for "Not Quite Gardeners Question Time", a talk being given by Terry Walton (allotment guru from Jeremy Vine's Radio 2 show) and Richard Fishbourne of Wiggly Wigglers



Amazingly I made it in time for a glass of mulled cider and was made very welcome by the team from Wiggly's, all of whom I have dealt with electronically in the past but never actually met. For me it was worth the journey down to actually meet everybody in person as much as to hear the banter between Richard and Terry, and even more so to find that they are all just as pleasant and easy to talk to as you expect from listening to the weekly podcast. Even Michael, technical wizz behind the podcast, catalogue, web site and just about any other form of media used by Wiggly Wigglers, put up with me asking questions behind the Wiggly's web site and how it all works.

The talk itself was fantastic, light hearted and full of audience participation; Terry makes stories of vegetable gardening entertaining, amusing and, above all, extremely informative, while Richard steers the conversation around to various composting techniques (standard, wormeries and Bokashi) and wild life, such as how important bees are in the garden etc. The only downside to the evening was being forced to sing "My. My. My. Dahlia" to the (not quite) tune of Tom Jones' "Delilah"!

Part one of the talk is available as Wiggly Podcast 0153.

And thanks again to Heather for inviting me down, being so welcoming and above all, not mentioning the cat argument from podcast 60!

All in all I had a great time and it was a real shame I had to get back to Ledbury and therefore turn down the offer of a pint afterwards...

Composting Awareness Week 4-10 May 2008

This week is Composting Awareness Week and it runs from 4-10 May 2008.

This site has some great offers on composting systems such as the Can-o-worms for £66 and a pair of Bokashi buckets for only £25, both of which are great prices.

The site is also a mine of information on how to compost both your garden and kitchen waste to stop it going in your bin and filling up landfill sites.

For further information on both Bokashi and the Can-o-worms check out my earlier post about how I compost - http://www.sherlock.co.uk/blog/2008/02/my-composting-setup.html

My new (eco friendly) lawn mower

I recently bought a new mower from Wiggly Wigglers and have been so impressed with it that I have written a review for them.

The review can be seen on the Wiggly blog

My composting setup

I make compost and am fascinated with the various methods of creating it. My reasons for making compost are partly because it truly is black gold when it comes to the garden and partly because it's a grand way of recycling cardboard, shredded paper and all sorts of kitchen waste that would otherwise be thrown in your bin where it would rot and smell until it got carted off to land fill where it would then rot and smell some more, producing greenhouse gases and filling up the rapidly depleting space for all the rubbish that can't be recycled (and the sooner land fill area runs out then the sooner a new incinerator comes to your neighbourhood and none of us want that to happen). And probably a large factor in why I compost is because I am a tight Northern short arse who hates spending money when he doesn't need to!

So, small garden or not I compost in three different ways:

Wormery
I use a Can-o-worms wormery, bought from Wiggly Wigglers in 1998.



The joy of this is you start with just one layer and once full add the second and then the third and so on. Once you have run out of layers the bottom is generally ready i.e. all your kitchen scraps, weeds, cuttings, toilet rolls and shredded bank statements/bills have been eaten by the worms and turned into vermicompost, an amazingly high nutrient compost (so high in nutrients that it needs mixing with other compost before being used for house plants etc, though it can be chucked on your borders as the best soil improver you will ever come across).

Bottom layer once top one not far off ready:



Middle layer once top one not far off ready:



Top layer - still being added to:



So to empty the bottom layer you take off the top ones, remove and empty the bottom one and that now becomes your empty top one. That way the worms are never disturbed (or at least not too much), and you can get straight to the good stuff without getting overly messy.

Compost bins
I have a three compost bin system i.e. three of the dalek type plastic bins which are rotated.



I have one bin with almost ready compost (the nearest, on the right of the photo), emptied twice a year. Once emptied I empty the second bin and fork everything into the newly empty bin. Then I empty the bin with the newest stuff in it (furthest away in the photo) - this is usually quite smelly as new stuff is still being added to it. The contents of this now goes in my middle bin leaving that third bin empty ready for me to start adding new stuff. Notice there's a fair bit of cardboard in front of these bins. This is a) so I can get to them without getting too muddy and b) so I can add it to the working bin as a layer of carbon between grass cutting and kitchen scraps etc. The act of turning the compost (by moving it from one bin to another) aerates it and kick starts the composting process thereby speeding the job up.

Because of the amount of kitchen waste and Bokashi added these three bins attract a lot of worms and I basically have three massive worm bins on my hands. This speeds up the process even more and compost is ready within about 6 months - I empty a bin twice a year and it's generally good quality stuff.

Of course it helps that the woodier cuttings (hedge cuttings, prunings etc) are shredded by the lawn mower before being added to the bin. I also add cardboard from cereal boxes, Amazon parcels etc as well as shredded paper and the odd Bokashi bin contents and the standard grass cuttings from the lawn. I also add urine (I kid you not) as it is high in nitrogen and also helps speed the composting process up. However, it's well worth taking note of the following a few weeks before you're due to empty the bins...

I'm hoping to start a new vegetable patch this year (see this recent post for details) and intend to start a more traditional compost heap/pile where I will be making use of plenty of fresh horse manure and straw to get it nice and hot. This will be the more traditional form of composting and will get so hot that the worms will keep well away for a few months - they will start their work once it has started to cool down in the centre.

Bokashi



I also have a Bokashi system (again bought from Wiggly Wigglers) as it is a real fast way of composting and is used when the worm bin can take no more. Generally I make sure there's only a couple of inches of uneaten food in the top layer of the wormery otherwise it starts to putrefy - a wormery working well smells only of freshly dug earth rather than rotting food.



Bokashi can also take cooked foods such as meat and food scrapings - all the stuff they advise against in a wormery or compost heap for fear of attracting vermin. The food is added to the Bokashi bin in layers, pressed down to get rid of air pockets and then sprinkled with bran that has been treated with EM (Effective Micro organisms). The lid is then tightly put back until the next batch of tea bags, coffee grounds, vegetable peelings and left over food stuffs is ready to be added.

Once full the bin is left sealed for about a fortnight and the contents, once ready, look like they have been pickled. However, bury it in your borders and it will have rotted down within a few weeks. I often add it to my wormery as it speeds up the worms and gets them munching quicker, turning it into more usable compost quicker. It also speeds up the compost bins as well. But mainly, it is in your kitchen so it saves you traipsing around on a cold winters night in the rain going to the wormery or compost bins!

Both wormeries and Bokashi bins produce liquid that can be watered down and used as plant food both for vegetables and house plants, saving you a fortune on often inorganic fertilizer full of all sorts. I used "worm tea" on my tomatoes last year and had the best crop ever and they tasted great (very sweet). It's great knowing you can produce totally organic food that tastes so good. In fact my son loves the cherry tomatoes we produce so much we bribe him with them to make him finish his main course! :)

Where the bloody hell is Winter?

"Winter" 2008 has to be the most prolonged bout of Autumn ever: We've had so much rain here in the UK that you'd swear it was actually Summer, except it's cold and it goes dark earlier.

Yesterday, 28 January 2008, the rain and wind stopped leaving a beautiful 'Spring is just around the corner' type of day backed up by the sounds of the birds in full song - you know it's nearly Spring when the birds start singing naughties to each other.

The grass had grown so much with the recent mild weather that I had to mow it (though I just topped it really). This is by far the earliest I can remember mowing and I also managed a good deal of gardening; clearing up dead stems from last years bedding, tidying up leaves and digging the borders (being careful to avoid the almost in flower Daffodils and very much in flower Crocuses). So now, when everything comes out properly they should look stunning rather than a few dots of colour set amongst an unkempt mess like last year.

Typically though, I arrive home from work this evening, get out of the car while smugly admiring my beautifully kept garden only to hear that Winter is about to descend! Temperatures are going to plummet and we'll likely have snow by the weekend. Let's hope that singing naughties is as far as the little birds got and they put their nest building on hold for a while. I hate the years where everything gets into the full swing of Spring only to be killed off by Winter having one last tantrum.

I also visited a plot of land that my Dad used to use as a vegetable patch: He has said "we" are going to get it sorted this year, and as I need somewhere to grow my beans (a few pots worth last year were lovely but not nearly enough) I have said I'll help him.



As you can see by the pictures there's a fair bit of work to do! I reckon if it wasn't winter and that lot was in full leaf you'd be wondering if there was a sleeping Princess trapped in a castle somewhere amongst it!

So I'm currently reading up on my previously not even glanced at books on allotments and vegetable gardening trying desperately not to think about the brambles under my finger nails and back breaking digging that's required to get the plot something like.

I know I'll love it once I get started though :)