Not exactly an Easter Egg but as close as we got. Fueled by this Bagel we tackled big jobs in the Yard. Both had the potential to be grim jobs but neither were too bad either.

But first a recipe for Easter.

Not for the squeamish. But the results are just like regular compost.

We use two rhubarb forcing pots to recycle coffee grounds, teabags and dog poos that are done in the yard. If such a thing can be described as a recipe then the recipe has served us well for the eleven years we have had Hugo and nine years of Lola. The method worked on the clay soils of South London, the excellent soil of an old mortuary in Cornwall and now on slightly raised beds in a city yard. The pots never smell and we use the compost for flowers and shrubs.

The process couldn’t be simpler and the compost is excellent.

Ingredients

Coffee Grounds

Tea bags

Egg Shells

Dog poo picked up with bamboo fibre toilet paper.

A handful of juicy worms from a friend’s compost heap.

Method

Place rhubarb forcer on soil ( Lid optional)

Randomly layer the ingredients as available. Worms just once.

Empty from below in the Spring wearing gloves and with a hand fork.

Pick through the compost to remove stuff that has not been turned into compost. The biggest culprit seems to be tea bag fabric  occasionally and friends who pick up their dogs poos with non compostable plastic bags.

I estimate that good compost is created in about a year with a three year cycle. Our pots seem to operate at about 2/3 full. We have two. When one is full to the brim we put the lid on and move to the other. The level drops surprisingly quickly.

In the Spring I harvest about 2/3 of each pot of compost from below and leave the top third to drop to the bottom when I stand the forcer back up. I always return a lot of worms to the top after I have done this.

We have moved house 3 times in 11 years there has never been a problem just bagging up and disposing of the small amounts of uncomposted matter at the top of the forcers.

Goodness knows why I felt the need to share this recipe. Except that we watched an Easter Special cookery programme that featured a ‘ What to do with left over Easter eggs’

Not in this house.

No programme ever features ‘ What to do with your left over dog shit’

@theoldmortuary USP perhaps.

The second job of the day was more tricksy, replacing a large plastic barrel home made ( not by us) water butt with an actual water butt provided by our water provider. First the full water butt had to be emptied and the water stored. Then there was butt wrestling to get the old one out and the new one in. And then refilling and landscaping of the new edition. All achieved before we went to a friends house for some Easter nattering.

It’s funny isn’t it, the conversations you have just as you leave these things that would have been so much more valuable at the beginning of the evening.  We discovered the couple who left at the same time as us lived 1/2 a mile from us in Crystal Palace 8 years ago. Both relocating to the same patch of coast nearly 300 miles away. The funny thing is just a slight fleeting familiarity not associated with our current location. Conversations for another day…

So much achieved on one Bagel.