According to the weather, today will be the last day of the year when it won’t be wet, cold, and full of misery – so I thought I’d better brave the freezing weather to go up to the plot to sort out bags of poo. The day started with ice everywhere but by the afternoon it was sunny but still very cold. Driving up to the plot I saw it was shrouded in mist, but even that melted away after a while when I got working.

I wanted to take advantage of the 10p bags of horse manure that get dumped by the gate of the site. I haven’t really taken advantage of it in the past as it’s normally really fresh, and it’s all in black plastic bags which reminds me of the bags you see hanging on the trees with little dog poos which seem to be a local feature. I needed to uncover my trolley so I could transport the bags but this was deep in nettles coming over the from the plot next door, I have a feeling no-one is working that pot anymore. As it was so cold I had my thick coat and thick gloves on which made it easy to pull up the nettles, while I was at it I thought I may as well pull up all of them. I snapped them up into small pieces and added them to the compost

The trolley had not been used for most of the year and so I was not surprised that the wheels would not turn round. I dragged it down the hill and by the time I had plonked bags of poo onto it, the weight of it all soon for the wheels turning again. I did the journey up and down the hill four times, collecting around 15 bags (£1.50). I dug in some of it, while some I left on the surface around the raspberries (quite a bit of straw included which I didn’t think would do them any harm), and the left over bags I emptied into the compost. By the time I’m using that compost (2025) it will be well rotted down.

The sun was starting to go down so I left the bed half dug with the bags remaining in place waiting to be emptied the next time.

In the past I have done nodig and it has worked well, but getting the compost is quite hard and a lot of work, and that was partly the reason why I decided on the local horse manure instead. I have dug it in very lightly but enough so that it is not direct on the surface which if it is it tends to go rock hard after a number of months.

As I was leaving I bumped into an “allotments council worker” who was informing of the new lock to the site. We no longer need a key, we have a combination lock number instead. She was just checking to make sure everyone knew, so they didn’t end up locking anyone in. Does this then mean we get our key deposit money back which we paid all those years ago when we took the plot on. Well, in theory it does, in reality I think we all know the answer.