Filed under: Doing | Tags: angela mcsherry, brick path, compost, free, hackney downs, liz, lovely, park
With the concrete cleared from the front of the house, Angela kindly helped me fetch sixteen more bags of free compost from Hackney Downs Park and Liz started to make a lovely path.

Free compost - lovely!

How many bags can we fit in one go?

A slightly blurry Liz rakes the compost

Lets make a path

Finished but we ran out of bricks for the path
Filed under: Collecting, Doing | Tags: clearing, compost, dead bed, hackney downs, junk, mulch, mulching, pond, rainbow chard, sheet mulching, strawberries
After mulching we split into two groups – Claudia and Parastow broke up some strawberry plants, which had been rescued from somewhere else, into smaller pots so they will survive the winter with some water and love.
Next they planted some rainbow chard which was already looking fairly tasty as it had started life in the same place as the strawberries.
Meanwhile Laura and I began to clear out the bed at the rear of the garden which revelead a dead bed frame, a kids trike and scooter, three barbeques, a couple of dead chairs and numerous other bits of junk.
We also spent an age filling up the pond but it was empty again this morning so we obviously need to do a better job of blocking the plug hole!
Filed under: Collecting | Tags: brown bags, free compost, garden waste, hackney council, hackney downs
Note – I was mistaken about the below post – it is actually leaf mould not compost – for free compost see this post
https://hackneypermaculture.org.uk/2009/09/09/free-compost-in-hackney/
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Happy days – I cycled by the park ranger’s hut today and he was in – I thought the hut was just for show!
He was more than happy to give me permission to raid the huge pile of compost in the north east corner of the park which is conviently five mins ride from my front door…
My friend Simon kindly agreed to help me out getting the compost back to mine.
The brown bags are free from Hackney Council for garden waste but are very useful for moving around stuff too as I have found more than once already.
We collected ten bags in fourty minutes then had to stop due to exhaustion – this is proving to be quite a workout for me!
I also managed to get a huge stash of garden cuttings from across the road this morning – I reckon with this load of compost, a pile of cardboard boxes and the neighbours cuttings I have all I need to start mulching.