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Allotment Diary

March 24, 2008: the worm turns household waste into gardening gold

Terry Walton and beans

Terry Walton's wormery starts earning its keep - creating fabulous compost for the broad bean seedlings

Well that is the second Bank holiday of the year done and dusted. The first one on New Year’s Day you could be excused from doing lots of tasks in the garden but Easter is supposed to be one of the busiest times.

This Easter, apparently, fell on one of the earliest dates it can be. The allotment is usually full of plot holders busy planting lots of early crops but not this year. The cold wind blew from the east down the valley chilling you to the very bone and to make matters worse it was accompanied by heavy downpours of rain, hail and the occasional snow shower. On Easter Sunday morning there was only me and one other member braving the elements on the allotment and both of us had the sense to remain in the greenhouse.

So there was not the usual planting of potatoes, parsnip and early carrots to fill the long weekend. These are best left in the shed and in the packet until the ground warms a little more and the colder frosty mornings have gone.

However the breaks in the cloud between the downpours saw the sun peep out for a spell and the temperature in the greenhouse soared as the sun’s intensity is increasing and all the plants could bask in its warming rays.

In our part of the world the daffodils are now passing their sell-by-date and are looking a little jaded. However their brilliant yellow colours are being replaced by the startling yellow of the tall, straight Forsythia bushes. What a brilliant show this makes, with its yellow flowers adorning the bush in early spring before disappearing into the green of its lush-looking leaves.

The first delicate pink of the season has arrived with the blossom of the flowering cherries. These delicate pink flowers fill the tree and bring a touch of delicacy to the early days of spring.

However the hail and snow flurries are doing their utmost best to destroy this beautiful sight and the ground on occasions is littered with these delicate pink blooms like the remnants of confetti after a wedding.

As you may well remember, last summer I became a proud owner of a wormery. Terry moving into the technology of the twenty first century! These little pink creatures have spent the last nine months chewing through my household waste converting it into fabulous compost. I mixed this 50:50 with ordinary compost to fill my polystyrene cups to grow on my broad beans.

The first success I had was that these germinated 100%, an unusual occurrence but this may have had something to do with the quality of the seed.

However these have grown on at an unexpected rate and three weeks ago they were evicted from the greenhouse to my cold frame to become acclimatised prior to planting on the plot. But the cold nights and high winds have prevented me planting these hardy little souls into the plot and they are looking super and continue to grow at a rapid pace. If I don’t get these in the soil soon, I will have another first and be picking beans from the pots in my cold frame.

I think I will have to reduce the proportions of the mix when I plant my runner beans at the end of April or I will not be able to untangle the twisting runners as they grow rapidly skyward.

It is great when a plan comes together and after many years of fairly conservative gardening something new comes into the plot and it works well beyond your expectations.

More from Terry
More on allotments
The Hillside Allotment by Terry Walton

Terry Walton is a regular contributor to The Jeremy Vine Show on BBC Radio 2 and has written a book called, My Life on a Hillside Allotment, published by Bantam Press at ?12.99. The book is available from Amazon

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