Topic: EJ's bean and pea trench

[suhayb]

Whats the "lovely chuncky green stuff" that you filled your bean trench with? (please)

I read somewhere to fill it with compost and 'kitchen waste'.   Seems like a bit of a mission to fill a 4-5 metre trench with waste veg from the kitchen!?!

for some reason I feel like ending with 'cheers love'. ???
Perhaps its an old Essex language thing??! ???
Thanks (from Suhayb no-longer of Southend-on-Sea!) :)

[tim]

Forgive me for butting in?

There are only 3 of us. Apart from all the stuff that goes into the compost bins, direct from the garden, our 12l kitchen waste bin is filled at least every 2 days - & that + the compostable stuff would soon fill a wee trench? = Tim

[Doris_Pinks]

Like Tim, we seem to produce a lot of compostable material!
when my beans have finished,I dig a bit of trench, save all my household compostables, veg, fruit, soft plant clippings, egg cartons, tea bags, coffee grounds etc, that normally go on the compost heap, And work my way along the trench  filling in behind myself............so dig hole, fill with stuff, put soil from next hole on top of stuff. Next time fill hole....ect etc until you get to the end!! It is amazing how fast you can fill a trench over the Autumn/Winter months! (err rambled a bit, hope it makes sense!) DP

[Sarah-b]

Hi - slightly off topic, but I started to fill a hole with kitchen compost and covered it over with soil (to start a pumpkin bed for next year). When I went back down to the plot, something had dug it all up again (a rat I thought). It didn't really matter. And now I have about 50 melon seedlings in that hole. I guess in a bean trench you might bury it all a bit deeper.

Sarah.

[Mrs Ava]

Yup, as soon as I knew I had the allotment I started saving all matter of compostable waste.  All 'green' kitchen, all garden rubbish, which I seem to have plenty of over the autumn as bedding goes and perennials are cut back and things are pruned, and thanks to the mild weather, I was cutting the grass almost weekly through most of the winter!  Shredded newspaper can go in, along with things like old woolen jumpers - but real wool, not nylon!  Plus, I had plenty of green stuff coming off my allotment, leaves, weeds, more leaves, lots and lots more weeds!  The only thing I didn't put in my trench was marestail and bindweed, but just about everything else went it!  I also got a couple of bags of manure and they topped the trench of nicely before backfilling with soil.  

I found the fox digging in mine, could obviously smell something nice in the ground, but he soon stopped.  I thought when I backfilled it there would be a huge mound, but over the winter, it settle down nicely and we have had lashings of beans, and they are still coming quicker than I can pick!

[aquilegia]

Right - I must do this next year. Last year we had loads of beans and I'd dug in lots of compost. This year, despite all the manure I'd put it, I have had a grand today of zero beans. There are a few a few inches long at the moment, but I'm not holding my breath!

[suhayb]

Thanks to everyone for "butting in"!!!

Sorry all for the bad style of asking q's.
It was kind of a continuation of a msg on crop rotation from the 'Edible' board- sorry.

[Mrs Ava]

Don't be sorry, and ask away, it is the only way we all learn.  The more questions the merrier, and cleverererer we all become!  ;D

[Beer_Belly]

I dug a nice big trench, filled it with loads of greenstuff, covered it up.

forgot where it was

what a waste of effort.

 ::)

-B_B-

[Mrs Ava]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!  Oh BB, well, I am sure whatever crops you have over the bean trench are really grateful and growing big and strong.

[Hot_Potato]

 :D Oh dear....started reading from the earliest postings and all the time thinking to myself.....'I'd forget where it was' and blow me....along comes poor old B.B. who did exactly that!!....how I laughed  ;) sorry B.B.