Equigrow Order Arrives

Arrived safe and sound between the delivery window I was given of 2pm to 4pm

 

The Large 50 Bag Variety Pallet looking well what can I say "Very large on the doorstep" 

What can be spied on the top of the pallet, are a couple of additional bags, above and beyond what I ordered. More on that later .........

I did offer the courier a drink if he could walk the sacks through to the back garden for me, alas he was on a time crunch and had I been his last drop off, he would have done. So there I was with all these sacks on my front door, scratching my head, how I was going to get them into the back garden?!!. 

Hold that thought again, all will be revealed later on in this post.

Focusing on the Blue Pallet at the base of this mega stack of compost.

Blue pallets almost universally indicate ownership by CHEP, a global supply chain and pallet pooling company. They are rented rather than sold, meaning they legally remain the property of CHEP and must be returned, as buying or selling them is prohibited.

The Meaning and Origin of Blue Pallets

• Ownership: The blue colour is a registered trademark of CHEP. It allows the company to track, maintain, and retrieve its equipment across the global supply chain. 
• The "Pooling" System: Instead of buying pallets, businesses lease them from CHEP. After a shipment is delivered, the pallets are meant to be returned, repaired, and recirculated rather than discarded. 
• Legality: Because blue pallets are private property, it is illegal to buy, sell, trade, or upcycle them for personal use. Keeping or attempting to sell them can result in legal liability or civil penalties.

Other Pallet Colours

Colour-coding is a standard industry method to instantly identify which company owns or manages the equipment. 

• Red: Typically owned by LPR (La Palette Rouge) in Europe or PECO in the US/Loscam in Asia-Pacific.
• Brown: Indicates ownership by the IPP Pooling network.
• Blue Plastic (FDA/Hygienic): Some unbranded blue plastic pallets are utilized in the food or pharmaceutical industries to indicate they are made of virgin plastic, meet FDA hygiene regulations, and are easy to sanitize.

What to do if you have one

If you are a business or individual with unauthorized blue pallets, do not throw them away or attempt to sell them. You can arrange for them to be legally collected through the CHEP Return Portal. CHEP provides free pick-up services to clear their equipment from your premises.

I've completed the information on the Return Portal now I will just wait and see how long it takes them to come and collect their property. 

The 20 sacks of Real Farmyard Manure stacked adjacent to the Kitchen back door  

Now I have to say, the back garden is looking a wee bit crowded as one might expect having just brought 52 sacks of various composts from the front to the back of the house.

I would love to say it was me that did it, unfortunately that's not the case. Kelly brought 7 sacks through bless her before she had to pop out on a mission as in driving her old car with a broken clutch to the car dealer, she has just bought her new car from. 

It was my neighbour Sid's grandson Dave who came to my rescue, he is in his 40's a scaffolder and as fit as I used too be when I was in my 40's. 

He would not take a drink as a thank you and was happy with a simple thank you. 

As my old dad used to say, there is no taste in nothing, so I will be buying him a substantial quantity of his favourite beer and giving them to Sid for him. In that way I can ask him for a favour in the future again.     

Fertile Mulch on the decking beside the gate

Two additional sacks added to my order by Erika of Equigrow for me to trial, Premium Soil Conditioner and Finest Topsoil. I will be posting about these in a little while. 

Organic Green Compose stacked up by the greenhouse 

A couple of stragglers 

Tomato plants looking happy having been rained on heavily 

I made modifications to the height of the step to make it a better height.

The bottom part of the stepper just pulled off with a little persuasion. 

I have placed them behind the top of the step to pack 

it out from the rear of the building. 

The carpet covers a multitude of sins 

Various Little Jobs Today

Tomatoes potted on yesterday are looking happy and I'm sure they have grown a little overnight and have benefitted from coming out of the house from behind the rear living room window where they were living on a temporary table. 

Doff 75g Natural Rooting Powder for Edible and Ornamental Cuttings 1 & 2 Pack

Arrived in the post today, I bought 2 off ebay as one cost £5.69 and a twin pack only £6.64. I'm going to need this in my efforts to take cuttings from my grapevines that are on plot 1A that I will be giving up in October. 

Doff Natural Rooting Powder contains a natural source of seaweed to dramatically increase the propagation of both edible and ornamental plants.

 

It is easy to use and helps from new roots on cuttings and graftings from soft, semi-hard and hardwood plants.

Natural Rooting Powder containing a natural source of seaweed to dramatically increase the propogation of both edible and ornamental plants.

• Use on a variety of both indoor and outdoor cutings, including new growth, brittle stems, woody stems, grafting, yound plants, corms and bulbs.
• For use on soft, semi-hard and hardwood plants
• Helps form new roots on cuttings and graftings
• For all edible and ornamental cuttings
• Easy to use rooting powder
• Also use for dipping plugs.
• Doff Rooting Powder 75g
• Use all year round.

Compressed coir compost bricks are lightweight, peat-free growing blocks made from natural coconut husks. For years when one was able to freely obtain and in fact most composts were peat based, I used to buy these blocks from the 99p or £1 shops, when they used to sell stuff for 99p or a £1 this is the last of stock of my cheap bought coir blocks.

When soaked in water, a standard ~ 650g brick expands into about 9 litres of fluffy, moisture-retentive potting soil, while larger 5kg blocks yield up to 70 to 80 litres.

Benefits of Coir Bricks

• Eco-friendly: A fully sustainable alternative to traditional peat moss.
• Excellent aeration: Loosens heavy soils, prevents clumping, and provides superb drainage.
• Moisture control: Retains water well while holding oxygen pockets for healthy root growth.
• Versatile: Sterile and naturally weed-free, making it perfect for seed starting, potting mixes, and wormeries.

How to Prepare and Use

1. Soak: Place the brick in a large container or bucket and add warm water (roughly 3 to 4 litres per standard ~ 650g brick).
2. Expand: Let it sit for 10 to 15 minutes as it absorbs the water and expands.
3. Fluff: Break apart any remaining clumps with your hands or a garden fork to create a loose, airy texture.
4. Plant or Mix: Use it as-is for starting seeds, or mix in powdered or liquid fertilizers, as coir itself is generally neutral and contains few plant
5. Or as I used too, a cheap (no longer) bulking agent to peat based composts 

Left the un-hydrated block in the bag, Middle 2 Litres of water added, Right 3 Litres of water added.

Once all water absorbed & fluffed up about 9 to 10 Litres of coir. 

 

Longitudinal brace loosely added to the apex of the hoops arches, more fixing holes added later in the day when the beds were once again in the shade.  

Grass Path between beds 1&2 and 4&5 trimmed from inside Beds 4&5

Standing inside beds 4 & 5 I managed to get the paths either side trimmed, without getting any debris on my feet of legs. I also managed this before the sun started to creep down the garden. 

View from what will bed 8 looking towards beds 1 - 3

View Of The Back Garden Allotment (BGA)

Taken from the small rear bedroom window

Next job off the the Equigrow web site to purchase a large 50 Bag Variety Pallet of Farmyard Manure, Organic Green Compost & Premium Soil Conditioner for my 9 new raised beds. 

Calculating the volume of compost needed to fill the top half of a single raised bed as I'm filling the bottom half old decking tiles and woodchips, thus equates to 1.2m x 0.9m x 0.225m = 0.243m³ 

Thus 9 number beds equates to 9 x  0.243m³ = 2.187m³ 

As 1m³  = 1000 Litres then I require 2,187 Litres to fill just the top levels of my 9 raised beds.

50 number 40 Litre sacks equates to 2,000 Litres  and I have two sacks totalling 200 Litres of Vermiculite to add. It would be nice to have at least one deep filled raised bed thus another 243 Litres would be required or just over 6 additional 40 Litre sacks. I will also buy and add some topsoil to the fill material. 

At £207.50 including FREE delivery at anytime between 8:00 and 18:00 hours that works out at £4.15 per 40L sack.  For an additional £15 you can specify a morning or afternoon delivery. 

My order is being delivered this Friday 26th June at anytime between 8:00 and 18:00 hours because I'm currently house bound, and I can't go anywhere even if I wanted too, and it's FREE.  

Buying 40L sacks from Wicks works out at £5 a sack and they wanted to charge me £35 to deliver it from a depot that is only 0.7 miles away from my house!

I first encountered Equigrow was in November 2021 when I won their Halloween Giveaway competition, and received my first 30 Small Variety Pallet, dropped off right by the front door, some went to the allotment, and some in my storage bench in the back garden. I still have a few sacks from that pallet pile.  

Equigrows 3 products are made from complete natural substances and are 100% Peat Free

Organic Green Compost is 100% green vegetation 

Premium Soil Conditioner is 80% Straw and 20% Manure 

Fertile Mulch is 80% Shavings and 20% manure 

Ten bags went to the store in the back garden, 12 bags went in the boot and the back seat of the car to be taken down to my allotment plots aka Avalon 

Eight more 40L bags went on the back seats.

Asparagus Bed & Shed/Plot 1 Patio

This morning I got to the allotment early as rain was due between 9 and 10, as it happened there was a little light shower and then the sun came out and I managed about four hours on the plot.

I had started clearing the Asparagus bed on a previous visit when I had some help "Thing" who needed some assistance and I didn't get around to completing the task.

I had cleared quite a lot of the weeds but had not dealt with the long rooted dandelions. I sourced the FISKARS weed puller that Kelly had found me for free on Facebook marketplace and set to work extracting them.

I have to say I love this tool, as long as you get it over the centre of the dandelions it pulls them out so quickly and cleanly. I said to the guy I picked it up from that I was going to use it on the allotment, and he looked bemused, thinking that dandelions are only a problem on lawns and not allotments.

Here is the view after the weeding was complete.

I have a 30 litre sack of Dalefoot's Lakeland Gold which is an ideal spring mulch that encourages worms and enriches the soil. A sack is supposed to cover 1 square meter, however my beds are 2.4m x 1.2m. I'm working on the premise that if used as directed that sack feeds for 2 years.

I'm assuming that applying at around 50% the depth that it should be, that what I've done will feed the Asparagus for 1 year instead of two. I do still have some Equigrow Mulch and will put a layer of that on top at a future visit as well.

Here is the bed after applying the Dalefoot's Lakeland Gold, I did sprinkle a greater depth above where the crowns were laid out and thinner between the two trenches that were dug and along side of the trenches.

With time cracking on and the forecast for rain between 10 and 11 am I covered the bed back up with the debris netting to protect it from the foxes.

I rescued two Raspberry that had escaped from the bed next to the Asparagus bed and had come out with roots so I transplanted it into the Boundary Beds, together with another Raspberry that was growing in the path between the Raspberry beds.

That in turn meant that I had to run wires at the top and at mid height between the scaffold poles in the Boundary beds to support the two transplanted canes.

I stopped for a coffee looked at the weeds and movement that had happened to the patio in front of the plot 1 shed and decided to weed and realign the paving slabs, and infill a gap with a block and a half of concrete block paving.

Patio slabs in front of the Plot 1 shed weeded and realigned. The path to the potting shed needs some weeding and work at a future visit.

Before leaving the plot for the day, I thought I would check out the state of bed 1 and was quite surprised as it had been walked all over by the foxes but they had not dug like mad as I thought they might. They had however dug a hole in one of the Rhubarb beds which I need to fill in on a future visit.