Many hands make light work

My brother-in-law, niece and nephew visited Australia last month.  It was great to catch up with them, especially since it had been over 2 years since seeing Naomi (below) who turned 7 while she was here. 

 

Naomi at her 7th birthday party

 They were very good sports while they were staying here, helping lug firewood and duck manure from our front path to the backyard.  It is always a bit of an ordeal when the truck turns up outside our house.  We have no driveway or garage and a narrow strip of footpath in front of the fence.  As soon as truck dumps everything (which is a challenge in itself, as the road is so narrow), we have to get out there quickly and get it off the footpath.  So it was all hands on deck.  Each kid had a pile of wood that they had to move, while the 3 adults moved the rest. After a couple of hours, it was all done and we had an enormous pile of duck manure in our backyard (which I foolishly thought would fit in the compost).

 The dwindling pile of duck manure (which smelt surprisingly pleasant)

 Finn and Quang (both 8yo) helping out

 Moving the wood to its new home behind the bamboo (you can store about 2 cubic metres behind there...which by Rozelle standards is huge)

Each time I get truckload of something (this time the primary purchase was wood for our combustion fire), I also order manure, straw, lucerne and whatever else will fit on a small truck.  It is far cheaper than buying it by the bag, reduces packaging and is a great way for us city-folk to get this stuff in bulk.  I must admit though, there was a lot of duck manure, but it has been great to be able to share it around my gardening friends. 

Duck manure
I chose duck manure because it was really cheap and has an NPK of 6:14:5, so really high in phosphorus.  I know that this is over-simplistic but:
N (nitrogen) - good for leafy growth
P (phosphorus) - good for rooting and shooting
K (potassium) - good for fruiting and flowering
So considering that I have lots of root crops at the moment (potatoes, beetroot, carrots, garlic, parsnip), duck manure seemed to be a good choice.