Rubbish

Much clearing up today. The bean canes are down now and the resulting pile of dead bean plants just in front of the hut has started off a dumping ground for other woody stalks and thorny branches I've cut off and pulled out as I clear up ready for winter.

We have to dispose of our rubbish thoughtfully on the allotments. I compost all the softer, greener waste but there are always going to be tough, spikey or just plain huge items of organic waste that would take years to break down in the composters and disposing of this stuff is a problem.

We've got no vehicle access to the allotments; we've also got a no bonfires rule. The choice lies between bagging up our rubbish and taking it home to be put into those green waste recycling sacks that the council will take or lugging it up to the far end of the allotments and leaving it there. We have an area that my kids always used to call the "wild woods" and I've also heard somebody call it "fairyland" (!!) that isn't cultivated but is used as an amenity by the allotment holders. Young trees have been planted there, somebody keeps bees in there, the compost loo is neatly hidden behind the Japanese knotweed and most of us take our green rubbish and add it to the existing midden between the trees. Eventually it will break down and compost too but for now, the pile is growing rather high! Today I produced spikey brambles, honeysuckle prunings and some horrible bindweed roots on my clear-up heap and all this will have to be taken to the wild woods as I don't want any of it in my compost, thank you very much.

Happy gardening