After a week of sunny days we seem to have started a phase of cold and rain, which is all a bit of a pity. We did have a little bit of warmth and sun and so we went out to mix and fill the first square foot bed.

Here we have 100 litres of vermiculite, 100 litres of peat moss and around 100 litres of two different types of bought compost.  Price wise the vermiculite came to the most at around £18 for the large bag.   In the UK, this was interesting but not tricky to find in such large quantity.   The peat moss was around £5 and the compost around £8.

Vermiculite is something I have not used or really seen before and I was expecting it to be hard bits of grit.  Upon opening the bag loads of light and fluffy little bits flew out like snow!

We opened all the bags and it all filled out, vermiculite snow everywhere!   A bit worrying to start with as it seemed to be mostly vermiculite but with help from both Tom and Jack they started to mix it all up.  I piled it all up in the middle, digging down, while they mixed at the top.  It was all a bit like making a cake where at the beginning it seemed like it would never all mix together and then suddenly you take a look and you notice it is all coming together.   It all took a good hour I would say.

After mixing, we leveled it off and marked it off into square feet.

All ready now for growing things in.   It is nice feeling stuff this mix, very light and very warm as soon as the sun catches it.