Daily Archives: February 12, 2012

Marquee Moon

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kolVxxX01Qg

A few weeks ago I was looking through a bookshop in the west end to spend a tenner’s worth of book vouchers I got for christmas and came across a very interesting book about gardening by the phases of the Moon. Now this is real bonkers but bonkers that has been used by our gardening ancestors for years and bonkers that works!

I knew nothing about the subject and as the book was over the tenner mark I bought Peter Hook’s “The Hacienda: How not to run a club” instead which was okay, full of mad stories but no suprises and certainly not a book you’d want to pick up and re-read. I now wish I added the extra few pounds and bought the other one as it seemed a bit out there but very interesting.

How mad was it when I found out the other day Scarlett Cannon from the great courses at Walworth Garden Farm wrote a piece about it in her regular I-grow section for I-D last month and has been using the method for four years.

http://i-donline.com/2012/01/i-grow-biodynamic-magic/

I am now “taking steps” (no pun intended Sting) to find out more…

Book of the week

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Bob’s Basic’s: Composting by Bob Flowerdew
(Kyle Cathie Limited) 2010

This a good little book about the art of composting from the great Bob Flowerdew, he of the Rob Da Bank ponytail and recycler of old fridges as mini-greenhouses fame. This was obtained from the local library but I reckon it’s well worth shelling out the nine pounds ninety nine for (probably cheaper as it’s a couple of years old now).

It’s easy to read and stuffed full of hints and tips with humour making it a great reference book. The main themes running throughout the book are that even the worst heap can be corrected and once you start making compost and use it, you won’t be able to get enough of it!

It covers the whole range of garden composting from the history of it, different designs of bin, what you can and can’t use, how to correct a bad heap and even covers wormeries, snaileries and chickens! There’s lots of things that I didn’t realise that you could do like using ditchwater to boost the heap and soaking weeds in dirty water for a few weeks to start them rotting down plus a great tip of always adding a thin layer of soil over the layer of new waste you put in to help it on it’s way.

And finally, my favourite quote in the book is “sadly, composting human dung currently puts you in the ‘too eccentric to be a nice neighbour’ camp”. And I thought adding urine from a bottle was considered a bit bonkers!