Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Weather: Overcast. Light snow forecast (but as yet no sign). Daytime temperature 1C.

It is snowing in parts of the UK at the moment - but it rarely snows here. When it spreads down from the north of the country it usually stops at Banbury - about 30 miles away. I love snow and I am keeping my fingers crossed that we get at least a few flurries but so far it's been a drab and cold day. There is ice on the standing water in the garden but the carpet that covers the compost heaps isn't frozen. For several days last month that carpet was a stiff as a board.

The compost crock in the kitchen is brimming over so one of the few times I will venture into the garden today is to empty that.

I have made compost for as long as I have been gardening. We have three compost 'bins'. Two are brick built with wooden slatted fronts. These are full of nearly done compost - some of which I will use in the spring. The third is an all wooden slatted affair which is the one I am filling at the moment.

At this time of year the most recent layers consist of kitchen waste (we eat a lot of vegetables so there are plenty of peelings and trimmings), wood ash from the stove in the sitting room, and the sawdust based cat litter from the litter tray belonging to a local 'outdoor' cat who has decided that it is warmer in our kitchen than in the barn she usually sleeps in... The mixture may seem a bit claggy but as soon as I have more greenery to add I will give it a bit of a mix and the resulting compost doesn't seem to suffer.

I had been hoping to find time to prune the fruit trees today but instead I'm getting started on editing the next RSPB podcast instead in this episode we will be previewing the Big Garden Bird Watch at the end of the month. I made a whole series of podcasts for this last year so I am going through material I recorded for that to see if there are any gems I missed and will be adding that in to new material which I am due to record next week.