Getting The Asparagus Bed Ready

No allotment this morning, but I got just over 2 hours on the plot this afternoon. I managed to excavate the two trenches and fill them with the required depth of westland Gro Sure Farmyard Manure as the base for my Asparagus that are due this week.

Now I just need to sieve and weed the buckets of soil that were excavated in order to make the triangle of soil to support the crowns 

Marked the sides of the trench and chalked the required depth on the spade then pushed the spade in along both sides of the trench and then perpendicular across the trench.

I weeded as best I could as I excavated and the spoil went in the square flower buckets.

Soil nice and black makes it hard to see the side of the trench in the photographs.

Trench prior to adding the 50mm of the westland Gro Sure Farmyard Manure in the bottom.

Cross Section of the 300mm wide Asparagus Trench.

View up the trench after the first sack of westland Gro-Sure Farmyard Manure was added and compacted in the bottom of the trench.

First trench after the westland Gro Sure Farmyard Manure was added and compacted.

I moved the square flower buckets into the trench as I didn't have the time to add the triangle of soil to support the crowns. I laid out more square flower buckets in the middle strip, marked out the second trench and again pushed the spade into the ground and wiggled to compress the walls of the trench and then cut up along the trench.

View of the second trench once fully excavated.

By now I had lost the chalk mark on the spade but I knew by the concrete on the spade where the required depth was.

50 - 70 mm of westland Gro Sure Farmyard Manure added to the bottom of the second trench.

I managed to just get the westland Gro Sure Farmyard Manure in the bottom of the trench and then covered the trench to stop Basil Brush and his mates from getting into it but I know they will get into the square flower buckets and dig. 

I really need to make up some fencing for this bed to make it Basil proof. Perhaps a job to do with all those timber battens I have been storing for the last few years.