We went this morning to get some spent mushroom compost. The soil in the bed where I've taken out the hebe is so light and vile that I can't bear to replant the area without improving it. I know that the ecological school of gardening would say that instead of 'improving' soil we should grow what naturally likes the conditions, but I want to create a garden, not recreate a blasted heath, and what naturally likes the conditions as they are is mostly creeping sorrel, gorse, pines, and brambles. (And Grevillea rosmarinifolia, which dislikes nutrition, and pasque flowers do pretty well, thus disproving the oft-repeated theory that Pulsatilla vulgaris requires chalky conditions). But I think a wider plant palette would be more interesting.
There is a mushroom farm at Capel St. Mary, just over the border in Suffolk. We had been there before and knew the drill this time, unlike on our previous visit. You take your own bags, though they will sell you bags if you don't have any, and your own choice of digging implement, and you shovel the compost into the bags and take it away in your own vehicle, and away you go, cost nowadays £1.50 per bag. I don't know why, but the first time we went I had expected used mushroom compost to be quite dry and crumbly, not unlike soil conditioner you would buy in a garden centre. Not necessarily. Used mushroom compost is basically a mixture of manure and straw. After it has finished growing mushrooms it is dumped in huge piles, outdoors. If the weather has been wet then so is the compost. We went to collect the first lot wearing shoes, not wellingtons. As we stood up to our ankles in slurry scooping it up we realised that wellies were pretty essential, and that wearing an oatmeal coloured fleece had been a bad idea.
Our previous visit was also enlivened by the fact that a cheerful Pole or Lithuanian with a tipper truck was dumping fresh loads of used compost close by where we were shovelling. From inside his cab he couldn't see if all of the compost had slid off the truck, and we entered into the spirit of it, signalling to him to keep tipping, keep tipping, and a thumbs up when the load had all dropped. Goodness knows how they got that past Health and Safety. We didn't see him today. I did ring this morning, before we set off, to check that they were still doing the compost. 'Oh yes' said the girl on the phone 'We've been doing if forever. Bring your own bags and spade. And wellies'. (When we arrived this morning the person I asked where the office was replied in rich Eastern European tones. 'Office. Therrre'. I don't think any vegetables would be grown commercially in this country without the Poles and Lithuanians).
A spade is better than a shovel. It cuts through the ordure. The cost is per bag, so you put as much in the bag as you think you can lift. There was one other customer, loading up an estate car. He'd obviously done it before, and had got the back seats down, a dustsheet covering the whole of the back of the car, and not just a spade but a garden fork to crumble lumps off the huge heap, plus boots and overalls. We took our ex-builders' flatbed truck. This is a useful vehicle, purchased at umpteenth hand with 240,000 km already on the clock, and a clip for delivery notes still on the dashboard. As much as possible of the servicing is done at home, the best repair so far being the replacement front wing housing the lighting cluster, made out of an old kitchen unit door. The chap who did the MOT was rather admiring of that. The other customer looked at the truck and our twenty bags of compost. 'Do you have a large garden?' he asked politely.
It is customary for authors to thank their partner, without whom their book would not have been possible, but I should thank my partner, without whom the garden would not be possible. It is not everybody who would agree so readily to the request that they spend Tuesday morning loading shit onto the back of a truck.
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