Leaves, compost and digging!

I made my usual Sunday morning trip to the allotment. However, this time I visited my neighbour first with my trailer to collect 3 bags of leaves he had for me. As I went to the car I saw another neighbour had left me 3 bins of grass cuttings as well. I loaded everything and added my kitchen waste bin; plenty for the compost and leaf bins.
At the plot my neighbour John helped me offload the heavy leaf bags and I trod them down just a bit as I am not sure whether  leaves need to have plenty of air in the mix to rot. I do know they need to be wet but nature will take care of that. Being a mixture of oak and beech leaves they will take about two years to rot down anyway.
The grass cuttings covered over the rather smelly kitchen waste and I added a few leaves from the leaf bin to balance the mix.

The bins covered over and the rat poison replenished I started on digging over the pumpkin/cucumber patch. As usual I had dug a trench out along the fence last time I was down so I just had to rake a strip of the chippings from the horse litter into the trench before beginning to dig with my 'Backsaver' spade. Two spits and rake in another strip of 'litter' ready for the next two spits. Before long I was halfway across the plot - but time was getting on and I needed to take home the veg for dinner so I left it to finish later and went to pick crops.
I dug up a parsnip that I thought would be too small as there were just 2 or 3 leaves poking out of the soil only to find broad shoulders nearly 4" across. However, under the surface it was not a traditional shape. It had split into several roots but they were thick enough to use so we will eat it. I also picked a couple of leeks that were big enough to eat.