Dealing with the compost

Friday 7th April
I missed my normal Thursday morning visit to the plot as we had work being done at home so I made a special effort to get down on Friday morning. Nevertheless it was nearly 11 o'clock when I arrived on site and it was already quite warm, not good when there was heavy work to do.
I needed to empty the compost bin completely and, as the secondary bin was already heaped up and totally full, the only place I could think of was the future runner bean trench. After digging out the selection of mature weeds, grass, nettles and dandelions, I dug a wide trench, one spit deep. Then I barrowed the remaining compost into it; nearly four loads. I forked over the bottom of the trench mixing the soil with the compost. That was hot and hard work, making me take a few breaks along the way!
I then dragged round the large builder's bag of garden waste I had collected over the last couple of weeks, and emptied it into the bin, screwing the front panel back into place once I had extracted the bag. After that everything had to be shovelled, lifted and otherwise delivered over the top edge into the bin. I started with a good layer of dry leaves from my collection, a couple of full barrow loads. Then I added my kitchen waste and some grass cuttings from neighbours at home followed by another layer of leaves. On top of this I added a layer of spent malted barley from a bag I had collected from Drop the Anchor Brewery which is starting up in Christchurch. (Once they get going this should be freely available in quite large quantities. Further info once we know more details.) The malted barley is quite smelly and may attract vermin so I covered it with a couple of barrowloads of leaves topped off with the grass and nettles I had dug up earlier.

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​The bin was nearly half full already, though it will compact down quite quickly.
I had just finished when the phone rang and I was summoned home for lunch