"Bob Hobden" wrote in message
...

"Douglas" wrote in message
Isn't it a shame that old, properly-done customs have fallen by the
wayside
due to laziness of body and mind.
It was always the custom, - before the rape of the peat beds began, -
(for
money, of course), - for gardeners and especially Nurserymen to make
their
own loam for seedlings and potting-on.
They dug grass sods - usually from a field, - about inches thick,
squared
them off very roughly and stacked them up to about hip or shoulder
height
and left them to weather for no less than a year, My Dad and I used to
have three at time stacked. The one-year-old ones did not do too well,
that's why we built three stacks, joined together to make one long one
but
the division between the three was obvious because the one just used and
replaced was just built and looked clean and new, it had no surface
growth
on it.
They were stood in line in a sunny corner and we used the three-year old
one. The outside of the stacks gradually grew a grass coat each but as
the
third one came into use it, the grass was skived off and put into the
first
one to recycle and rot.. Simple!, - isn't it?. Everything happened
more
slowly in those days.
The stacks when brought into use produced an excellent friable loam
ideal
for seedlings and potting. all the weeds and their seeds in the middle
of
the stacks had, usually, rotted.
The last Nurseryman I saw using the method had succumbed to the peat fad
and
used it in various percentage mixes to suit the particular job in hand.

I thought gardeners just collected mole hills for potting compost.

--
Regards
Bob

Some photos of my plants at.....


**************

And how right you were, Bob!.
There's a road goes past my house to Rampside on the Morecambe Bay northern
Coast Road and it has very wide grassy verges. Once a year the verges on
both sides and the adjoining fields sides are a mass of mole hills.
A country type narrow lane leads down to, and past, to a farm, what used to
be my Uncle's house, and he collected potting soil from the mole hill mounds
surrounding his garden.
I don't think the mole's digging procedure added any nutriment to the soil;
I think that because their style of digging with their small hands and
claws, it breaks the soil up into a mound of very friable soil which makes
for easy potting of plants. Moles have very high and speedy digestive
processes and they have to work speedily and diligently to survive. There's
a name for it but I have temporarily forgotten it They circumvent this by
digging caches chambers and they store surplus worms in them.
Up in Cumberland, now called Cumbria moles are called "Mowdiwarps" and the
new Oxf. dict. of English confirms it.
Way back in time you could see on farmhouse fences and other fields wooden
fences lots of mowdy skins spread out with tin-tacks drying in the air. When
sufficient were gathered they were sent away to make moleskin fur coats and
plumbing wipes.
Later on the mowdy-catcher tacked them unskinned and were held to the fence
with just one tack.
This was to allow the farmer on his field inspection-walk to be aware that
the catcher was diligent in his vocation and the number of skins hanging
there indicated how much he owed to the catcher, which would be handed over
the next saturday night in the local. The farmer never removed them, - the
catcher did that the next time he worked. Such was the simple countryman's
trust in each other it would never enter anyone's head to swindle the count.
Doug.