Excavation two

The second of what was to be three campaigns to empty the brick compost bin was kicked off yesterday (Thursday) morning. In the event, it proved convenient to take out the second and third tranches in one go, so the third campaign lapsed.

By 11:30 or so when the snap above was taken, maybe five barrow loads of compost had been extracted.

Some yellow-green slugs had been present on the left hand wall, but they mostly vanished while I was emptying the barrow. Maybe the cats, which were hanging around, had them, maybe they just squeezed into crevices somehow. The odd bone from the bottom of the heap, from the days when meat waste was allowed in the compost. The odd book, not fully decomposed. Some plastic film from the covers of books which had decomposed. Plenty more bio-degradable plastic wrapping from Neal's Yard Dairy. Plenty of fibrous roots.

Twenty minutes later, by around 11:50, I had broken through to the back wall. The end was in sight.

Forty minutes after that, by around 12:30, everything put back together again. With what had been the top layer of compost now the bottom layer. Agricultural rope back in place for the foxes and rats to chew on. They seem to baulk at the serious knots, that is to say the two round turns and two half hitches, but they like the loose ends well enough.

The bin front has lasted pretty well. Still perfectly sound and good for another round. With the slats below having been taken from the reducing heap of remnants from the garden shed we took down on arrival, more than thirty years ago.

I had misjudged the number of barrow loads of compost I was going to take out, with the result that the bank started higher on the left than it ended on the right. This irritated, so after lunch I took a fork to it to make amends. We will see how it settles - and how much mess the foxes make. Last time they had a rather desultory poke around at the left hand, that is to say the fence, end.

The two grids which used to cover the micro-ponds do well in their new role as compost retaining wall, although they have now been pushed a little out of vertical. Through which some of this year's daffodils can be seen. Last year's Baby Blue right, still not fully recovered from the hot dry summer.

PS: just about exactly five years since I walked the grids from the other side of Ewell Village, as noticed at reference 2. Not something I would venture to try now.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/02/excavation-one.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/02/new-wheeze.html.