the wonder of worms

It’s amazing how much worms can eat (and poo).  We have one of these wormeries outside the back door and, no matter how many potato peelings I tip in, the worms keep the level at the same height.  Apple cores, boiled runners, mouldy garlic, grass clippings – those worms love it all.  We can hardly keep up with the unctuous brown feed that drips out (actually, it’s more like a deluge, when I remember to tip and drain).

 The liquid food is doing great things with my dahlias – which were slow and reluctant at first, and are now on a par with the ones grown by the dahlia wizard who lives up the road.  (I hate the green-fingered.)  I suppose if I were of a scientific bent, I would carry out an experiment, feeding some and not others, but life’s too short, and I like flowers too much.

 In case you’re wondering: still no allotment.  I can hardly believe how unenthusiastic those people are to hand over the keys to our much-anticipated new plot.  We keep knocking and asking, and passing on the off-chance, but to no avail.  We have been vaguely promised takeover this weekend (1st Oct) but I’m not loading up the wheelbarrow yet. 

We discovered that we would be inheriting our plot in June.  After a mad flurry of ordering books and creating vegetable spreadsheets (ahem), our sleepless excitement subdued.  We stopped boring our friends and neighbours and we finally stopped boring one another.  We were silenced into waiting.  Now we’re still waiting.  I wonder if this waiting period has been a good thing.  I have forgotten half the stuff about pruning tomatoes and planting onions, but we will be taking an altogether more relaxed and civilised approach: slowly cultivating the parts we need.  After all, we have a whole winter of nothing-growing to dig, read, and twiddle our thumbs.  But… that said… we’re poised for action.  Tools, wheelbarrow, old planks, and seeds at the ready.  That plot will hardly know what hit it.

And oh do we have things to load it with!  Our garden compost bin is full and ready.  We stopped adding to it a few months ago, added some organic speeder-upper, and now it’s all gunky and brown.  Perfect for mixing with other stuff * and slathering onto that neglected old plot.

My shallots are here too, confusingly (I checked: they don’t get planted until spring, which is making me panic: how will I keep them alive until then?).  Rhubarb, blackcurrants, and gooseberries are all on order – and boy, we’d better have a plot by the time they arrive.

*I am so down with the allotment jargon.