Continuing to raise the allotment with trench Hugelkultur (8)

I have several different things that I want to get on with at the allotment.  I need to bring some more brushwood for the digging trenches; this I can get from the garden.  Also, I need to bring the slabs and Champagne rhubarb roots from the old allotment.  I have at least 20 odd concrete slabs which I could collect.  I am going to make a sitting area next to the shed on the new allotment and will need eight more slabs to do this.

I have found a new place to grow the Champagne rhubarb because the planned planting area was filled with the Large Victoria rhubarb.  I just can't fit the Champagne here.  It will go over by the cold frame, where I was going to plant it originally.  Now I just need to go and fetch it.

I also wanted to transplant onions, lettuce and cabbage seedlings into pots, plus sow some sweet pea seeds.

I did none of these jobs because I have been trenching all day.  This is the bed where the potatoes are going to be planted in the Spring.  I want them to have a really good deep root run and this will provide it for them.

Another trench dug out.

The top soil was removed and put to one side.  It was particularly deep here - about two spits deep. I think that I used a lot of the compost from under the hedge last year and this increased the depth quite noticeably.  A little chicken manure was spread over the top soil so that the fertiliser would mix in when the soil was returned to the trench.

The bottom of the trench was forked over turning up last year's Hugelkultur.  I found a little brushwood to put at the bottom of the trench but a lot more is needed.

Barrow load of chippings.

I got a barrow load of chippings and brought them down to the trench to fork into the bottom.  It was a little awkward because the little leaning apple tree was in the way.  I did think that I would not extend the trench this far but there were no apple tree roots so I carried on to the raspberries.

The little leaning apple tree was in the way.

I added the chippings to the trench squeezing around the apple tree, digging in about four barrow loads.

Chippings dug in.

Some of the top soil was raked back into the trench and four barrows of farmyard manure were added to the trench before the top soil was levelled across the trench.

Took me all day but its another trench completed.  It is a good way of loosing weight after all the over indulgence of Christmas.  I might do another trench tomorrow, but the celery is in the way.  I am going to use some for soup but the rest may have to be put at the bottom of the next trench.