Gardening
Clean greenhouse
Wednesday 16 February, 2011
It's been miserable here today - dreich, in fact. However, John did finish cleaning out the greenhouse with the powerwasher. Unfortunately, it drained to the back corner, so he had to drill a drainhole in the concrete floor to let all the water out.
So no excuses now - I hope to get some cabbages sown this weekend and maybe some carrots in pots. Have to say though, given today's weather, it doesn't feel very spring-like.
A stroke of luck
Sunday 30 January, 2011
One (!) of the major projects we have going on at the moment is setting up the vegetable garden. We are using a 3/4 acre paddock where the coil for the heat pump was installed. After planning on paper (the easy bit), we bought the timber for the raised beds and Dan and John built the first one. Then we had all the snow and ice, so work halted.
Last weekend, Dan and I moved the timber into the vegetable garden and work was set to resume. The soil dug out for the coil was to be barrowed into the raised beds. THis turned out to be a huge job but this weekend, we had a stroke of luck.
Vegetable garden
Sunday 10 October, 2010
When we first moved here, we identified the small paddock behind the West range as the mose likely site for our vegetable garden. It is also where the coils for the ground source heat pump are being installed - NEXT WEEK!
Given the time of year and the approaching groundworks, it seemed like a good time to start planning the vegetable garden. As usual, we're doing it all on paper (well, on computer) first - much easier to move things around! Last night, we had our first planning meeting and Dan's started getting the design drafted.
Tidying up
Sunday 1 August, 2010
I've been tidying up the garden this week, in anticipation of having some viewers. It's been lovely - the lavender hedge has come on well and is moving with bees, as is the borage and the marjoram.
My new toy
Sunday 2 May, 2010
We've got a petrol mower. I rarely cut the grass because a) I find it hard to start, b) it runs away with me and c) I hate the noise. But all has changed!
Dan's mum bought a Qualcast Panther 30 - fancy name for a hand cylinder mower. Since they are caravanning and have no lawn to cut, it's residing in our garage. The grass needed cut and Dan's very busy, so I decided to get the hand mower out. And it's great! I'm chuffed to bits with it.
It takes me about 40 minutes to cut the lawn. On a sunny morning like today, that was very pleasurable. It's funny how certain things take you back, but my Gran had a similar lawnmower and she used to let me cut the grass when I was a child. Using this one takes me right back to those days. It was lovely.
Lilac
Saturday 22 August, 2009
Dan planted my Lilac today; it was a leaving gift from a friend, when I left work. I have been dithering about where to put it, but decided that if it was beside the gate to the vegetable garden, we'd pass it a lot in Spring and get the benefit of the lovely scent.
The variety is Syringa x Josiflexa "Bellicent", which has fragrant, clear rose-pink flowers in May and June.
Feed the birds, tuppence a bag
Wednesday 4 February, 2009
You may recall the song from Mary Poppins, I think - well inflation's moved things along since then. We've always put out bird feeders and enjoy the wild birds that come to feed. A friend gave us a huge feeder as a wedding present - the idea that we could fill it every couple of days. Unfortunately, the birds didn't understand this and proceeded to empty it.
We don't get anything very exotic - starlings, spuggies (sparrows), wrens (one of my favourites), blackbirds, blue tits, a couple of goldfinches.
Killer roses
Tuesday 20 January, 2009
Since it was nice on Saturday, I decided to spend some time in the garden. I thought it would be good for Dan to get some fresh air too! I always have his welfare at heart.
I bought a pear tree in Tesco last week, so Dan planted that. It's a Williams' Bon Chretien. I love pears. We have one tree left out of two planted first time round, but we've never managed to get any fruit off it. Maybe we'll do better next year!
His next job was to lift and split one of the rhubarb crowns. The other one will be done once the blueberry is transplanted. I would have done that on Saturday had I been able to get some ericaceous compost; I wasn't driving into Stirling just for that, though. Finally, he pruned the blackcurrants and gave the compost bins a bit of a shoogle.
Scotch Rose Hedge planting
Saturday 8 November, 2008
When we first moved to our house, it was sat in the middle of a one acre field. There were no paths and no boundaries, just an acre of grass with the odd rickety fence. Over the 8 1/2 years we've been here we've gradually added more structure: hard paths, fencing for the house, vegetable garden and kitchen garden, and about 600ft of native and beech hedging.
Today we put another piece in place - a Scotch Rose hedge running alond the front of the pig pens. Although we love our pigs, we felt we needed a boundary (other than the fence!) between them and the more formal grassed area (we aren't shameless enough to call it a lawn) which sits at the back of the house. So earlier in the year we had some kerbing put in to create beds along the pens, and a cobble path leading down to the gate into one of the pens.
Rainy days - thank goodness!
Sunday 1 June, 2008
We've had a half and half day today - warm sun in the morning and warm rain in the afternoon! I planted out the sweetcorn this morning, so I'm grateful for the rain. It's been very dry for about six weeks, but we had rain earlier in the week and today, so everything is growing great - including the weeds!!
The worst thing about having to net everything is that weeding is a bit of a chore. I find the job quite satisfying but I hate taking off the net and even worse, trying to put it back on. It's much easier with two.
