Plum Bonfire | HotBIN Feeding | HotBED Prep | Polytunnel Bed Finished!!

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Oh this is a heavy one it’s a smelly one too but look at all of this right hi folks and welcome back to the alotment whenever I mention composting on the channel I get so many comments and loads of the advice recently has been to go to a green grossers and ask

For their discards and we were at one the other day and I just say happened to ask and they went oh yeah I’ve got loads I can give you they were more than happy to just Chu a load out the back and look at all this for the hot composter I had

A comment as well saying JB do you not compost at home but I do and there’s always like a little food caddy and the bin in the kitchen so that’s first on the list for today’s job although I mean that bag of sprouts is just crazy and

There’s a few bits that were still good for eating so I took a few bananas out and kept those I am a bit of a human Dustbin I eat a lot of things that a lot of people would put in the bin not a fan

Of waste and all of this isn’t going to waste it’s going in the hot compost so I’m just to say with the moon one of those really little things and unfortunately there was a slight hitch I picked this all up Monday night loaded it into the back of the car and then

Tuesday was one of those chaos days where all your plans go a bit sideways and uh got into the car this morning oh dear me I’m really hoping that that smell of sprouts leaves the car pretty quick but it’s all here now so the first

Job for me is to process some of this stuff because even though it’s all kind of halfway gone especially as it’s been in the car for a little while getting extra sweaty it’s still going to be a really good idea to chop all of this up for the hot composter and actually I

Sharpened all my tools the other day that time where I forgot the camera and didn’t know what to do with myself I used that little tool sharpener that I showed in my Christmas present video and it just like it’s a pleasure to use all of my tools at the moment when I was

Chopping up the plum trees it was like going through butter with those freshly sharpened lers absolutely loved it so I’m going to get all this chopped up then we’ll get it in the hot composter and then there’s loads of other stuff to get done today I’m just going to do that

Thing where I go until I run out of energy and there’s no shortage of things to do because it’s an Alotment you know I think I actually finished chopping all this up about five minutes ago I’ve just been carrying on going more is really relaxing and um just been thinking a little bit about like the the process of composting you know seems like such a shame to have waste wasted

All this food and it’s definitely definitely one of my my actual favorite things about the the whole aot menting and vegetable gardening process is making your own compost and it’s never something I’ve been particularly enthusiastic about or um particularly good at because I’ve just had the cold

Compost in setups and it’s all been very slow and I’ve not actively sought composting material like this you know i’ I’ve used it as a way to get rid of things that I don’t I don’t need I’ve really just used it as a bin you know my

Compost bins are a bin but actually seeking out you know food waste like this which you know is just going to go into landfill and turning it into into compost and getting all the stuff going with the hot bin paying extra attention to it it’s just really really cool you

Know and I was thinking about how it’s just uh it just really sucks that um Audrey who lives over in America and is on our potty mouth live streams um you know she’s not because they’ve got like homeowners associations and that kind of things like they have rules

About what you can do in your Gardens and she’s not allowed to compost they’re not actually allowed to to do this so she’s got some funky setups where she’s doing it in the ground to do like underground worm farms and that kind of thing which is quite cool but that’s a

New thing and up till now she’s not really been able to compost which just seems like such a shame cuz I love this stuff giv me it does give me that like nice warm feeling knowing that all of this is going to go back into my garden

And you know I’ve been looking at all this stuff like oh yeah look at that look at all this the weight of it there’s a good few kilos there I tell you so uh let’s get this in the hot bin shall we I’m absolutely filthy it’s a bit rain

And drizzly today so that kind of task in the in the tunnel is just perfect let’s have a little look at how the Bin’s getting on with all the I tell you what it’s so strange seeing the greenhouse is completely empty now oh that’s really weird actually I don’t

Like it at all oh it gives me the creeps especially that one you know it’s completely bare won’t be long though won’t be long until they’re full oh let’s have a look at the thermometer it’s upside down maybe let me fix that okay well it’s gone down cuz I just had

To lift this lift this out it’s very strange setup the thermometer goes into like a little bag in here that is full of some kind of I guess heat conductive material I think this is like a vent for things oh look at that yeah this is just

Like a little air vent I guess but it’s been so wet this winter that I’ve left that closed I don’t know if you could see the steam I just lifted the lid and there’s an absolute explosion oh yeah it’s getting hot who that is really nice and I think

It looks like it’s starting to dry out a little bit now that I’m adding more compost so that’s fantastic look at that Fuzzy Beard let’s get this in it oh it’s so warm I’m not kidding when I say this is heavy woo ah feed it feed the hot bin it’s so

Good that is soaking though that definitely needs a lot more cardboard which I’ve got at home there’s loads in the shredder ready to go just about keeping it balanced the properly green stuff is so wet you know loads of limes and bananas and tomatoes which are just like there’s so much

Water content so I’ll mix it in a little bit a little bit of cardboard that was in that flower pot too and hopefully this will continue to roast away so I just shut up the hot bin and then I was thinking I’m sure I’ve got a compost thermometer somewhere that I had from

Ages ago I’ve spent ages looking for it but I actually found it just one of these so let’s pop this in and see if it’s actually up to a good temperature cuz someone was saying that the the hot bin thermometer at the top is a little bit unreliable compared to sticking a

Proper thermometer in there I don’t like to open this too much I feel like it’s good to keep it closed as much as possible just to keep the heat in climbing it’s climbing looks like it’s just about stopped there just hitting active still going up a little bit this

Is good so it’s not roaring we’re not up into the 60s and 70s into the hot bit hot comp posting but it is active fantastic so I’ll keep this to hand this is very it’s good to actually be able to show you and get a bit more of a

Scientific handle on what’s going on inside the bin rather than me just putting my hand up to it and going oh it’s really hot I promise I’m telling you I could be saying anything couldn’t I but we’ve got proof right folks I think it’s time I think it’s time for

The past nip Harvest we’re just a few days away from Christmas now and this was really my my goal I wanted some of these for Christmas dinner I pulled one of these the other day and they looked pretty good it wasn’t a Competition winner wasn’t as big as Tony’s G

Gigantic one um but considering first time growing pnps and I just sewed these direct straight in the ground into freshly kind of new no dig bed really really pleased with these and there’s a good there’s some good looking ones I I space them out quite far apart they’re

Vegetation never got that big so I wasn’t expecting good things and the first one I pulled really fat on top only about that big so let’s get a few of these wish me luck oh look look we’ve actually done it we’ve got some I can’t believe I’ve actually got some root crops

Unbelievable they’re just so similar to carrots you know for me in terms of what I was expecting so I just thought I’d have absolutely nothing germination took a good few weeks they weren’t quick and so I’ve never had High Hopes oh go on oh go on that one’s a little bit

Wonky oh we’ve got a bit of a multi multi clumper here oh this one feels like a big though oh my goodness me good Lord that shed behind me looks a bit scary making some noises hope it doesn’t fall on me the the trick is apparently the thing that everyone says

Is give them a push down to try and loosen them first before you pull them up but I think once they get to a certain size it’s just look at that oh my days we’ve got can’t believe this is just like uncharacteristic uncharacteristically successful I don’t want to take too many

Should we leave it there there’s a few oh I don’t know how many we got left one one two three maybe I’ll leave those oh let me show you these properly look at that the vegetation started right back so I was a little bit worried but that’s

A decent decent set of pass Snips and then a couple these kind of looked like they’re a multi-one so they must have just germinated in the clump but they’re not bad either you know that’s fine eating they’re just not as picture perfect as these maybe I’ll one more let’s do one

More come on and then I’ll say that my parents can have the rest cuz they’ve been helping quite a bit with the spring bulbs and everything they did loads earlier in the year as well oh this one doesn’t feel as good a size oh this one’s weird it’s forked

That’s a bit more what I was expecting but still little bit more wonky but still that counts that’s cut that bit off and that’s okay I’ve just set them aside on the mini water butt that little thing that I’m hoping to use as a cracky system

Next year in the tunnel another kind of experiment I’m not going to do that right now because my hands will get absolutely freezing but the plan is I’m going to do a few more bits and then burn up day we’re not allowed a bonfire till 4:00 so I’m going to get

That going then I wash the past nips and I can warm my hands up on the fire that’s clever so what do I want to do now well I don’t really know I think it’s just so miserable and look at how gray it is today feels like it’s just on

The cusp of raining all the time little bit of drizzle in the air so I think I might do a bit of digging in the tunnel just because it’s fun and I’m going to get a load of material moved from here so that I’ve got a bit of a trench ready

To make a a hot bed thing which is the another experiment that I’m just so so so excited for I had quite a few comments asking me about the hot bed and the plan and a lot of people saying don’t you need a meter by a meter by a

Meter you know 1 M cubed to do a proper there’s lots and lots of different ways of doing it I’ll put a link again for Jack First’s book in the description I don’t want to just tell everyone all the information that I’m reading in the book because it’s kind of it’s a bit

Borderline like plagiarism you know I I don’t like just taking someone else’s ideas that you know they’re selling and uh just giving them away for free so you’ll see me doing this a little bit but I’m one of the bits in the book having said that you know it’s okay to

Talk about it a little bit is you know he talks about doing it in a tunnel and you can get away with doing it on a bit of a smaller scale because it’s got that natural kind of insulation of the tunnel you know and one other thing as well one

Of the general principles is it is better to go deeper and have a smaller you know not as wide or as long a bed and you know then you’ve got the depth to really generate that heat so 1 M by 1 meter by one is a way of doing it but

It’s not the only way of doing it so I’m going to get stuck in get my podcast back on and do some digging I love it just one of those days it’s good it’s good If I could hear my father’s voice he would tell me to move on he would say I’ll be just fine yeah he would tell me we have time time to laugh and time to heal a favorite song is On now that was a mission that was hard work that was very very hard work I’ll flash up how long I’ve spent doing that I’m not out of breath anymore because uh one of my mates came over and we were having a bit of a chat and a catch up and he was

Going oh oh that’s sexy JB look at that sexy bed there’s just something about it now that I’ve taken all that material and we’ve turned this it just looks like a raised bed it’s gone from that that ground feeling to the raised bed feeling it’s level with the Timber and there’s

Just something about it we’re really losing the light now but hopefully you can see we’re kind of at the level where it’s oh it just looks amazing you know we’ve just come up to the level of the the base rail there and this is so full

Of air you know a couple a couple of applications of water and this is going to sink down quite a lot I don’t want it you know all the way up to the top to be honest because this will start to rot quite quickly and we don’t want the base

Rail to rot either but ah just so so good and over here of course the pit the the hot bed to be now like I was saying the other day I’m not going to fill this up and get the hot bed started just yet because it’s a little bit early this is

A little bit of a small hot bed we’ve got about between 30 and 40 cm depth here to the top of the soil at the back there and then we’ve got gonna have a little bit more where we can really pile on top of it um with the manure and then

We’re going to put some compost on top of that in a frame so there’s still going to be quite a lot of material here and as well when it got to the bit where I was just you know getting out a good amount of clay and the bed was full that

Has all gone into this wheelbarrow and it’s quite wet so it was mighty heavy that was some mighty heavy work but I love it I’m feeling really good I really just love that kind of winter work you know when you end up in a t-shirt in the middle of winter just yes absolutely

Love it now it’s really dark and we’re past the bonfire limit so one thing I do want to do is get some cabbages in but I might do that in a different video just because just because I want to get the fire started I’m eager I’m eager to get

The fire started so I think I’m going to do that that’s my little treat to myself I didn’t bring any beer though I might even I might see if Jess will bring me a beer what you Reon you re in the chances of that are I

Can’t have a bonfire without a beer it’s just you know they’re a match made in heaven Jess is out isn’t she no beer no beer for me what a sad tale I’ll just have to enjoy the fire by myself all I’ve brought up is a few a

Few little logs and a couple of little kind of waxy natural fire starters I quite like a challenge and I think I’m probably just going to find a little space in in amongst all the trees down here to get set up now generally on the channel I spend a lot of time joking

About my own ineptitude now there’s one thing I should be able to do hit style of fire I used to do this professionally as part of my job in conservation we would have a fire every day to basically get rid of all the material that we would generate throughout the day

Clearance or doing habitat restoration so if this goes wrong it’s going to be very funny now you get two kinds of fire starters you ask me wig whammers and Towers now I’m a fan of the tower I like to build like a square structure I think

It allows more air and if you build a tee then it can collapse in on itself so it’s my way of doing it I’ve got some kindling here Mike had some spare bits kicking around now I’ve not got much today this is all I’ve got a couple of

Fire starters so little bit challenging no newspaper or anything find the driest smallest bits first start building the bridge all of these bits of kindling are actually quite chunky I’ve made a bit of an error there and this is oriented so the wind will blow through here go if

This doesn’t work it’s going to be really funny most important bit is probably these two which are like the podium now they don’t have to be this isn’t particularly dry this is a bit of rotten wood and these are wet but it’s just to keep everything off the floor so

The air can get in and without those it’s going to be so so so much harder to get this starting and we’re going to be doing a lot of wet wood so we really want to get some nice hot coals before we start putting any wet material on here wish me luck

First match fail okay got like got about five matches in here as well okay Houston we have a problem maybe I should have bought a lighter ah these matches are not playing ball might have to go and ask someone for a lighter go on go

On oh my my God okay I I had to turn the camera off to just concentrate and I’m not joking when I say the last match finally just got this little fire started going now like I say these are just little waxy things so they’re not

Really really built for this we got a lot a lot of air coming through just trying to block it off a little bit air is good but too much at the start before you’ve got the fire going here’s a problem there we go this little blocker

I think has just helped things along a little bit one of the things I love about a fire is starts out so small it’s a bit like a seed plance you know it starts out just so small and soon this is going to consume the whole load of

Trees and Brash prunings that I’ve got so it’s been a little bit touch and go to be honest we lost it at one point but with a lot of lot of blowing we got it going and then I put this little this little incinerator on top and as I put

It on the bottom just kind of flaked away turns out uh it’s not not looking too good so I’m not sure if I’m going to leave this on to be honest it might actually be safer to take this off because if I start piling this up and

Then it falls over that won’t be very good but we got it roaring nice now as you can see so I’m actually probably let’s take it off now before it gets too hot to touch and that’s probably for the best and I’ll just have to keep it a

Little bit smaller go bit by bit so I’ve made sure to pick a pick a spot where there’s no other poly tunnels around or anything like that but very glad very glad that it’s going now it’s only like 5:00 but it’s pitch black you’ll notice it’s still in the fire pit

Because when when I took the uh when I took the bin off fire immediately went out so these these bins are amazing just for channeling the air and creating you know the flame was up here as soon as I took it off the whole thing went out

Just because it got smothered in the structure so going to leave it on for a bit longer just to really get the heat in the coals um I fed it a little bit more with some of the plum tree but a lot of this is kind of drywood and

Kindling but it is going to have to turn into a bonfire but we’re getting there we’re getting there I just love this this is like um I did that 10 questions with Jane recently and I was talking about one of the main reasons I actually started the allotment and it was for me

It was about being outdoors and doing things like this is such a big part of having the allotment and this kind of Outdoors activity and fires and composting and digging stuff out and ripping stuff out there’s something about that physical of it which I find so rewarding about aot menting you

Know do wish I had a beer though do you remember when I said at the start how funny it would be if I couldn’t get the fire going exactly the same thing as soon as I took the bin off it just uh just doesn’t want to go so I know it’s it’s

Got the heat in it the Coal’s ready but the wind has died down it’s gone still so this is where the lungs come in times like this I’m glad I don’t smoke still got life in it it’s still got life bit of patience bit of perseverance we’ll get this going again [Applause]

Now hopefully this time it will work I waited until the fire started kind of creeping towards the outside try to encourage it it’s been going absolutely ages now if this doesn’t go I give up really good fun though I’ve got massive thorn in my thum got

It it’s going I think it’s going to go [Applause] [Applause] now oh this is so good this is like just my favorite thing to do I love it if you stack them with all the all the chopped ends One Way makes your life so much easier I did unfortunately forget to

Wash my pnps but I’m going to do that now unfortunately you won’t be able to see it though I’m going to say thank you ever so much for watching an extra special thank you to all of my chili pepper here patrons Tony Bill Pam Louise Mel Michael Denise socks in the garden

And Andrew hopefully you enjoyed this one and hopefully I’ll see you again in the next one oh look at it guys so good