Feeding the birds

It's been a busy week and we haven't managed to get back to the plot until today, but in my tea breaks at work I've been sneaking down to the workshop to build a bird table!

Not bad for my first bit of woodwork since school, I think (let's ignore the compost bins, which couldn't have been wonkier if I'd built them during an earthquake), and far cheaper than any bird table I could have bought - it's made entirely from scrap wood. We've hung a cheap wire peanut feeder and one of those fatty 'bird-cake' thingummys on it too, and we're just waiting for the birds to start enjoying it... But its real purpose is slug disposal. That sloping roof ain't just to keep the rain off, you know; once I get a strip of copper tape or sandpaper round the edge of it any slugs, snails and caterpillars that get in my way are going straight on the roof, where they'll have nowhere to hide from hungry thrushes and blackbirds (and if the birds don't get 'em, the sun will)!

We did get some real work done today as well (Eddie did at least, while I was messing around with screws and green paint!) and turned one of the compost bins. The transformation that takes place in the lower levels is quite amazing - we took the front off the bin and all that garden and kitchen rubbish just looked like lovely black soil.


There are still quite a lot of roots going through it so it needs more time, but we've mixed it all up a bit, put the least composted stuff at the bottom (along with some fresh stuff from the kitchen and the garden at home), added a good wheelbarrow full of dead leaves (our site gets regular deliveries of such things, which sit in a huge mountain at the entrance - it's really useful!) and gave it a good watering. It looks like a much more useful and efficient compost heap now, unlike last week when it had grass growing all over the top! Now we just have to find time to turn the other one...