Compost & Comfrey?

There's not much to show in my garden at the moment, don't get me wrong everything is growing rampant but it's that time of year when all I seem to be doing is weeding and tidying every day - oh and feeding every bird in Caithness judging by how much food they're getting through.

Today I tackled the compost heap. Remember the bins I made out of scrap wood a few months ago, well I've been ignoring the compost growing in them because it just never seems to do anything and I was getting a bit cheesed off with it - in fact the last lot of stuff I threw on it even included plastic tags such was my 'the thing doesn't work anyway' attitude.
This morning at 6am I sat and watched my 2 favourite gardening programmes and the first one 'Beechgrove garden' had a snippet about garden compost which got me to thinking I really needed to get my act together and get the hang of getting it right - my garden is so in need of as much as I can produce.
So I watched and listened as Jim McColl  went through all the stuff you can compost as well as the stuff you can't and then he went onto the task of turning it, that is when it dawned on me that I'm still not turning the blinking thing and that's probably why it's not rotting - I'm a lazy gardener have I ever mentioned that?
So one of my tasks today was to turn the heap. Here's the unturned heap - there's actually alot more there than it looks

Unrotted huh! I know it doesn't look much but I still have a tendency to throw stuff that should be composted, plus I lose interest in doing it because it never seems to rot.

Then I turned it and discovered that it was actually rotting but I never see this because I never interact with it - I just leave it and add to it so it never looks rotted.

I've started a new bay now, this one will just be turned regular and covered until it's ready.

The next programme I watched this morning was 'Gardeners world', it's not the same since Geoff Hamilton died and then Alan Titchmarsh leaving but Monty Don is the perfect presenter in my book - I just wish there was more gardening and less gallavanting to be honest.
However, Monty touched on another subject today that I've always wanted to try - Comfrey liquid for feeding plants. I regularly have Seaweed tea to hand but I didn't think I had any comfrey growing anywhere to try comfrey tea. The laugh of that is that I didn't even know what Comfrey looked like so how do I know if I have any - again too lazy to check.
Anyways Monty cut some of his Comfrey plant and it suddenly looked familiar, I'm sure I have some of that growing on the land, so I took a couple of pictures.

Is this Comfrey people?
If it is then not only do I have some growing but I have heeeeeeaps of the stuff - how did I ever miss it! Assuming it is Comfrey of course?

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that someone can tell me it is indeed Comfrey.

The smell in the polytunnel is getting more gorgeous by the day, not only are the Lilys and Pinks in flower now but the Sweetpea is too - what an awesome collection.

I'm not sure what the White one is called. I usually keep all the names somewhere safe but for some reason I haven't with the Pinks. They were a special offer from Gardeners World magazine last year where I just paid p&p for a fair few different ones but I can't for the life of me find where I recorded the names.

My DIY wormery

The bitingly cold weather appears to be hanging on here and it doesn't make for a happy gardening experience so yesterday I figured I'd spend the day clearing up jobs in the greenhouse and polytunnel.
Once I got in there though I suddenly had a whim to build a wormery. I've wanted to build a wormery for a while just to see if it composts down those kitchen scraps quicker than my compost heap but it had to be made using items I could salvage from around here (not buying a thing).
I didn't have the tubs I wanted to use last time so gave up on the project, however I now have a surplus of those plastic tubs so I gathered 3 of them and 1 lid and headed off to the greenhouse / workshop.

I decided I wanted the lid to be black instead of clear to absorb a bit of heat in the winter so I gave it a coat of black paint I bought for the indoor log burner.

Next I had to adapt the bottom bin which would be the one used to collect the liquid from the wormy compost. Alot of the tutorials online suggested placing a brick or two in the bottom so that the next tub wouldn't sit all the way down and the liquid end up drowning the poor worms but even if I did own a brick or two, which I don't (have never even seen a brick here in the Highlands) it's not what I wanted to do.
So I decided in my wisdom to screw a square block to two of the internal sides so that the next tub could sit on those - like this

I did then realise (when I took the time to actually think the process through) that in my "wisdom" I had actually made the liquid tub no longer watertight - duh!
Oh well, I'll just have to empty it regularly won't I!
As for the actual reality of screwing those blocks on, well let's just say I could have kicked the whole thing over the valley because I made a real meal of it. The main problem being that I wouldn't even allow a 1/4" difference between the two because if both sides didn't sit level it would bug the hell out of me.
With the bottom liquid catching tub done I moved on to the next level. This next tub needed teeny tiny holes drilling in the base to allow all the liquid to drip through to the bottom tub (I'm kinda going on blind faith that the worms won't follow suit) and then I drilled air holes all the way around the top of the tub

This second tub then sat niftily on top of those blocks in the bottom tub

The final top tub then had the same air holes drilled around the top and holes drilled in the base so that the worms can move on up as they need to.

With the lid on all I needed to do was add the ingredients and the all important worms.
Research told me that I needed to first put some damp cardboard on the base of the middle tub (hopefully this is designed to stop them pesky worms dropping to their watery death below) followed by some damp shredded paper, then some soil with the worms and finally some kitchen waste.
Once all the layers are in place I then simply put more damp cardboard on top of it all and then stack the third tub (with the lid on top) and then wait for those worms to do their thing!
So, where do I get the worms? I remember when I last got a load of horse manure that it was full of the correct Brandling worms but I've not got any recent manure so what to do? Well apparantly the compost heap is very likely to have some so I donned my Marigolds and plunged my hands into the compost heap.
After 10 minutes of rooting I found nothing! Nada! Not only was there no Brandling worms but there were no worms whatsoever - that can't be good can it?
So my newly built wormery is just sitting there because I refuse to buy blinkin worms. I'm just going to have to go and get a trailer load of manure.
Buying worms!!!! Whoever would think of such a thing! Worms!!!!

What have I started

That's exactly what I was asking screaming at myself this morning.
You see yesterday I decided on a whim that it was the day I was going to build my 3 bay compost area. Originally I was going to build it on a fresh area of land next to the polytunnel but I didnt think I would have all the materials I would have needed to do that and so because I am the sort of person who wants what I want when I want it, I started looking around at what I could adapt to fit.
At first I figured I shouldn't dismantle the plant pot holder I made a few years back out of old pallets

but then I figured 'what the heck', I didn't use it that much last year and anyways it just encourages me to keep stuff in small pots for too long plus the current plastic compost bin is in a bay directly to the right of the pallet pot holder.
So I ripped the whole thing apart!
Well it seemed like a good idea at the time and when I went in last night with an unfinished project on my mind I was quite oblivious as to how awkward the project would prove to be. It wouldn't have been at all awkward if I'd just started the darned thing from scratch but the way I was doing it (making it up as I go along) meant alot of hand sawing and attempting to make the whole thing at least look level (no spirit level was involved - too much hassle when I just want a job 'done').
When I eagerly walked over this morning to continue the job this is what I was faced with

That is so not how I remember leaving it last night.
After alot of jaw gaping and confusion I set to work to get the entire thing finished today. The  thing that makes my projects so unpredictable and messy is that I never ever EVER work from a plan, not even in my head in this instance. I literally made the whole thing up as I went along and finding materials to fit the mess I had created was getting a bit annoying, it has to be said.
Eventually (when I left it this afternoon) it looked like this

It's not finished. I still need to add wooden slats to the two end pallets to keep the compost in (I only got round to doing the middle bay) and I need two more decent pallets for gates but it'll do the job.
Now I'm hoping I can finally get some decent compost going because the stuff I've been making over the last couple of years is pretty naff.
I had a plastic bin in that right hand bay and I emptied it all into the middle bay but after being in the plastic bin for approx 18 months this is what it looked like

Seriously slow at rotting down and absolutely no heat.
I'm hoping the bigger bays combined with better chopping up of materials will get me some of the good stuff. I haven't made lids for the bays so I'm going to keep an eye on them and cover with polythene if I think they need it.