The compost pile I built from successive layers of grass clippings, wood chip and horse manure less than 48 hours ago is cooking nicely. Currently reading 67°C (152F). #Compost #Composting #SolarPunkSunday #Allotment #Gardening
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Broadfork
@Broadfork@mastodon.green
mastodon 4.7.3I’m a no dig allotment gardener in the UK (9a). Compost maker, dog walker, vegetarian, anxiety sufferer. Climate issues and UK Green Party will be boosted. No Alt Text no boost.
My avatar is a brindle boxer dog with a stick in his mouth and the header is a bed of pink hylotelephium spectabile in early autumn.
756 Followers
519 Following
50 Posts
Joined September 26, 2024
Ceanothus, clematis and sambucus nigra elderberry in flower. #BloomScrolling #Flowers
No elections here today but posting this from our UK local election last year because this hashtag is glorious. #DogsAtPollingStations
My plot helper with no intention of helping. #Allotment #NoMowMay #GreenManures #Gardening #DogsOfMastodon
English midland hawthorn in flower on a dog walk. My favourite hawthorn for the mass of spring colour it provides. #Bloomscrolling #Trees
Some Summer shower excitement. #Gardening #DogsOfMastodon
A bouquet of flowers picked from the garden on this day three years apart. The pink bouquet is from today, the yellow bouquet is from 2023.
Only the forget-me-nots and yellow wallflowers are present at the same time of year as they were three years ago.
#Remembrance #ClimateDiary #Gardening
The bee hotel has some new occupants. #Biodiversity #Bees #Pollinators #BeeHotel
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The hot compost pile was at 66°C/151F today so it’s had three days over 65°C. Two days at that temperature is sufficient to kill weed seeds and pathogens.
10 litres of rainwater and lactic acid bacteria (LAB) diluted 1:1000 was added to the pile.
The pile had its first turn, outside to in.
Within an hour of turning it had heated up from 53°C/137F to 59°C/138F.
The pile should remain above 55°C/131F for the next three days when it will be turned again. #Compost #Composting #SolarPunkSunday
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@MaQuest@mastodon.green My little bit of guerilla hedgelaying has already put on a lot of new growth since February. #Hedgelaying #SolarPunkSunday
Carlin peas and Latvian peas still haven’t been eaten by anything. Grow fast and strong, little things. #Gardening #Allotment #NoDig
I don’t watch much of UK tv news media’s political fuckwittery anymore. But the lead up to this local election has been something else. I am utterly disillusioned with corporate Britain and its media lackeys.
The rise in popularity of the Green Party EW is in spite of (or because of?) the media narrative. I like to think people are turning away from that narrative at speed.
If you have a vote tomorrow, please vote for hope not hate. Vote Green. 💚 #VoteGreen #UKPolitics
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@Hellybootwader@mastodon.scot Without a photographic record to refer back to I would be none the wiser how quickly things are changing.
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@kellyromanych@mastodon.social Love the new harness and your deaf tags look good on it. Geo looks in really good shape. Ernie was a gangly thing at the same age.
Now spring’s here Ernie likes to bring his toys outside after breakfast.
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@feinschmeckergarten@norden.social Food for thought. What else were you going to do today? 🤣 I’ve been down so many rabbit holes it’s turned into a warren.
I’m off to play with some compost.
@Pollinators@epicure.social
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@Pollinators@epicure.social Could you use the compost pile to heat a small sand battery?
For then placing in a cold frame or providing some residual heat to a greenhouse overnight?
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@PhoenixSerenity@beige.party If anyone tries to steal anything he’ll lick their faces off. He might give them a whack with his wagging tail too.
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@Pollinators@epicure.social The green manures are such a useful addition. Not only do they feed the soil biology when crops are scarce, the biomass from them can be chopped and dropped as mulch or provide the early greens for composting.
I do love your ducks and I’m very jealous. We aren’t allowed to have any livestock but they would fit in so well with horticulture.
Good luck with the composting.
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@Hellybootwader@mastodon.scot Thanks, my flower arranging leaves much to be desired but it’s the thought behind it that counts.
The strange thing for me was seeing how different our available garden flowers are now than they were just three years ago. We are seeing early June flowers in early May.
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@kellyromanych@mastodon.social Geo’s in good hands he must have a lot of energy to burn.
It’ll usually stay green here until July but the grass is already only growing slowly and it’s way too dry now for us for May.
Ernie enjoys nothing better than a roll around after a walk or if he’s been couped up indoors for a bit.
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@carolannie@c.im It provides an early flower for pollinators. I’ll also make some blue dye from it but my hope is go a stage further and turn its leaves later in the summer into blue pigment for painting.
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@Florapis@toot.wales Yes, thanks. His 100% home cooked diet is working well. He likes a lie down on his walks but he’s doing really well. He’s still bonkers.
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@Pollinators@epicure.social We really should make more use of the heat created by the composting process than we do.
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@rooftopjaxx@kolektiva.social Currants out already, very nice and I like to see the phacelia almost as much as the bees do.
My old plot would be full of phacelia flowers already but this one is a lot more shaded in comparison.
Come the summer I think I will be very grateful of that shade.
@laurenheywood@social.ds106.us
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@Pollinators@epicure.social The grass was well watered with sprinklers before they cut it so it was already heating up when I was building the pile.
I was going to dry some of it out for mulch but the better option was to put it all in for making hot compost instead.
The guess work was not adding any more water to the pile and hoping enough rain fell that evening.
I’ll turn the pile tomorrow. It’ll have had over 2 days at 65°C/149F plus, so just need to turn it from inside to out and heat it up again.
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@Lazarou@mastodon.social There’s more importance now on Andy Burnham’s keynote speech at the Compass UK event at the end of May. #UKPol #PR #GreenParty #GPEW #ElectoralReform #Labour #LibDemhttps://www.compassonline.org.uk/events/changenow-mobilising-the-progressive-majority/
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@laurenheywood@social.ds106.us I have some growing on to plant out a small patch in one of the bean frame beds. Unfortunately last year’s seedlings didn’t amount to anything.
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@pete@social.coop I’ll just add it’s perfectly ok to not feel ok too. There’s a lot going on these days.
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@afewbugs@social.coop Worrying.
Enjoy #ExeterPride today and congratulations on Exeter’s Green Party successes yesterday.
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@moss@kind.social I’m up for it. A revolution first needs to start between peoples ears.
Let The Introvert Wars begin.
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@kellyromanych@mastodon.social Sounds like you both worked through it very well. No dramas and a play session.
Geo is a lovely boy 💚
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@LifeTimeCooking@mastodon.au It’s a quiet spot yet full of nature’s noises. I can truly switch off sat there. It is very peaceful when no one else is there as today.
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@Florapis@toot.wales We took a look at his diet and decided we could cook it healthier and cheaper and cut out a lot of the plastic packaging too.
He has a broad mix of veggies with some chicken or sardines with a flax seed, turmeric and ginger gravy. It’s worked out cheaper than the food we used to buy for him and he’s off the high fibre medication he was on. We upped the fibre intake in his diet instead.
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@kellyromanych@mastodon.social I thought he’d take a look around first but he just said nope I’m lying down here in the grass and in the shade.
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@laurenheywood@social.ds106.us @rooftopjaxx@kolektiva.social The red is far superior to my eyes. There is a lot of it around here. I used to have some at the back of my old plot but there are half a dozen red hawthorns down this street where the photos were taken.
They must have been planted as part of the housing development which makes these just over thirty years old.
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@Pollinators@epicure.social I am very jealous. I would love to have both their help and company.
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@laurenheywood@social.ds106.us We had a wet winter but it wasn’t water logged like the year before. It’s maybe given the ground nesting bees a better chance. Providing safe habitat & food for them can only help.
I’m not good at identifying the different bees as my eyes aren’t as good these days but I’ve seen a lot of smaller, solitary bees this year and now the bumblebees are getting going too.
I’m happy I can have my plot the way I want it here without the questioning. This one is a much nicer site for me.
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@laurenheywood@social.ds106.us Things are definitely progressing. The front of your plot will look quite the shop window when it is all in flower.
I’ve been mulching my earlies up for 10 days or so. I watched bees busy pollinating the blackcurrants this afternoon while I was hand pulling the horsetail and bind weed around the raspberries.
The phacelia isn’t far away from flowering, nor the crimson clover.
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@Hellybootwader@mastodon.scot Wonderful, it would be almost rude not to share them about.
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@MiguelGuerreiro@ecoevo.social I’m not sure how much relevance US or UK mason bee knowledge is to each other. I just use UK sources to be sure it’s relevant for what I do
I’ve seen US YouTubers using paper fillers and removing cocoons for storing. It’s interesting but that’s not something I want to do.
There’s good information in the lifecycle of UK mason bees in this link.
http://lambleys.co.uk/mason-bees-uk/
I’m interested to see if the holes the bees don’t use this year will be used by them next year & vice versa.
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@Sofaflyer@mastodonapp.uk Your meringue poached egg bed looks fabulous as do your potatoes.
I keep mulching over mine as my plot is liable to get a frost on a clear night sooner or later.
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@firephoto@mastodon.social It certainly won’t hurt. I’m never short of pea seeds to use some as sacrificial in other areas to keep the mice otherwise occupied.
If they come good too, that’s great.
I’m hoping these carlin and Latvian peas won’t attract interest from anything else.
These varieties of peas are for drying, storing and cooking similarly to lentils.
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@MiguelGuerreiro@ecoevo.social Can you provide a link to that evidence please? That would be great to look at.
I’ve been following a citizen science project by Prof. Dave Goulson’s Buzz Club here in the UK. It’s collecting useful information on bee hotels.
It is in its infancy. Bee hotels do attract mites but as to should you clean out your bed hotel, the jury is still out on it.
Their data suggests hotels that weren’t cleaned out have more occupied holes.
#Bees #Pollinators
https://youtu.be/6c_YhzKD0mo?si=8AHM_AHH7EnCvPWU
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@MiguelGuerreiro@ecoevo.social Yes I agree. I wasn’t trying to conflate the two issues. The biological recording company is a worthwhile resource to dip into.
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@sundogplanets@mastodon.social Thank you for what you do. It’s important to keep fighting but also to find the time doing the other things that nourish you too. 💚
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@MiguelGuerreiro@ecoevo.social I’ve seen some of those and mites are terrible for bee populations but I’ve not seen any year 2 onwards advice.
I’ll see how the bee hotels are in early spring next year. I can and will certainly clean them if need be. Or provide new ones.
I am conscious the time to clean holes is quite tight between new bees leaving the nests and new ones being filled.
I’m hoping better guidance can be provided based on practical evidence provided by such as the buzz club and Dave Goulson.