Horticultural triumph

It may not look much, but this photo marks a triumph as I actually managed to extract usable compost for the first time from our dalek in the back garden. For years I dumped my peelings, tealeaves, eggshells and so on in this thing, and marvelled that the pile seemed always to stick at halfway up the inside but also that actually it never looked like anything other than peelings, old flowers, tealeaves and so on. It was warm inside, it smelled quite pleasant ... and it crawled with ants. 

Over a year ago, I gave up using it. Instead, we poured in the Garrotta (spelling?) and gave it a laborious stir with the hoe - the only implement long enough to get any leverage in the stupid Dalek. The grass around it flourished, as did the pesky rhododendron in which it nestled. 

Until today. Emboldened by a bit of sun and an empty flowerbed that had lain under water for much of the winter, I opened the bin and started digging. The lowest layer is in danger of becoming lignite - so hard to dig anything out of it - but I persisted. As you can see, I managed to achieve enough in the end to cover the area intended. I am sore in places I didn't know I had, but I'm triumphant.

Oh - I saw a couple of ants, but more woodlice than I've ever seen in one place in my whole life. The extra photo is of a couple of them, just for fun.