Muck Heaps

No I have not posted in a long time, I am sorry.

So, what have we been up to? Well, a while ago I mentioned that I had taken the muck pile from the barn into the field. In order for the muck to break down properly it needs to be kept warm and moist. Too much water and it’ll wash the nutrients away, which kind of defeats the point of muck spreading.  The muck heap is finally complete, and the other day we added the biodynamic compost preparations. These are 502-507.

• 502: Yarrow
• 503: Chamomile
• 504: Nettle
• 505: Oak Bark
• 506: Dandelion
• 507: Valerian, which is the only one that is sprayed around the edges of the muck

502-506 are incorporated into a small ball of mud or muck and put into the centre of the muck heap, each one separated by around a metre from the last in the order above. My job was to make the little balls and pass them to people to put inside the heap. I think we made around 50 balls in total.

The muck heap, before the fleece

We added the fleece during really high winds, which made moving a 25m long, 4m wide fleece into position under 40mph gales was rather challenging. Finally we got it on and weighed it down with tyres:

Completed muck heap. Oooh look at all those tractor marks though… Luckily we’re ploughing it soon!

Looks rather good too!