Raised beds and rotten Cherry branches.

Now that the potatoes have finished it's time to get another crop in or do something else. It's something else that i am doing, i have made my first raised bed down by the Cherry tree or what's left of it. The Cherry tree will be coming down at some point in the future but not know. The Cherry tree is very old and the cherries are very small and not much good but also the trunk is straight and about 9ft high before any branches come out of it. It would be good to have the trunk made into planks and left to air dry for future use. In the first picture you can see the damage to the branch that has been taken down. The branch s about 8in's in diameter but the damage is clear to see. The branch had to come down as once i am growing under the tree i don't want anything to fall on the raised beds once i have things growing.

I put my raised bed into position and i then needed to fill it. I started by first taking all the leaves from the branches from the cherry tree and what a job that was all done by hand. Then where the potatoes had been i took the soil and started to sieve it to get all the rubbish out of it. Next it was put on top of all the cherry leaves in teh hope that the leaves will rot down and help by becoming compost. On top of the soil will be a mix of compost i got from Leyroy Merlin and mixed in will be equal parts with coffee grounds from a local cafe. On top of that is the horse manure i have and then a good layer of soil. But i don't have any soil yet but i know where to get some.

More photos when the bed is completed and i have potatoes to put in for Christmas also some purple broccoli and if i can get away with it some more chillis.

I already have made up another raised bed and it will be put in position as soon as i finish this one. That also means i need to get a lot of soil and know someone who has a lot to get rid of  after having a base for a above ground pool laid.

It's easy to see how rotten this branch is and this is only one branch. 

Here is the bed with all the leaves from the downed cherry branch as a base to turn into compost.

Here is where the soil is  going onto the leaves to make them rot down into compost.