Back to the Future!!

Well with the weather being so Universally shitty just lately, it has meant that any hope of doing any work at the moment, near impossible, unless I want to be a drowned rat and catch Pneumonia toiling away in the garden under this cold Autumn / Winter weather, in what the weather men, sorry person's are saying is the worse weather in a thousand years, yehhhh, tell that to Noah!!!! Albeit a few thousand years further back!!! lol!!!

Anyway, as I cant get out in the garden to do any work, decided to back date my blog a little, as I only started end of last month, and have been in my house just over 2 years now!! So will do a little recap on some of the gardening work, and things I have made, in relation to the garden.

Have to say, never did wood work at school, but since my dad showing me a few pointers a year and a half ago, and my mums creativeness, I have taken on my new skills with relish, and become quite the handy DIY'er!!! So will start at the beginning, before the veggie patch was done, or even a twinkle in my eye, with having to rebuild and make a new fence out of timber bought from the merchants, to replace the 25 year old tiny fence which was rotten and falling to pieces. As you can see in the pics, after removing the old fence, it went from nothing to a frame work to 14metres of completed painted fence!

Next up was the existing fence which was of decent enough quality, but had unfortunately been painted with the cheapest of cheap green crappy fence protector from Morrisons. So instead of just trying to paint over it and have a mix of green and brown, I got creative, and maybe stupid, but my gamble paid off, as I used my pressure washer to wash off 40metres of 8metres high of the fence, removing the horrible green faded "puke" protector. You can see in the pics when I sampled the pressure washer, then the job completed!!

Later on, whilst completing the veggie patch, needed to make a gate, so out of again timber from the merchants, I measured the area I wanted to fill, did a little ditty on paper, and proceeded to make a gate, which cost wise, taking out my time, cost me about £12!! not bad if you consider to buy it, would prob have cost me about £50-60!!!

When I first moved into my house, I found that although in a completly run down state, garden old fashioned, no love and care taken over them, etc, the people from before had left an old bench, which due to the weather, was rotten, mossy, and if you tried sitting on it, you would break it and fall though, but I thought, here is my template, so I measured it all up, took some photos, and drew some drawings, and then bought some more timber (the merchants love me!!!!!) to make a new bench, only better, and stronger!!

My next task to be kind to the birds, as I live near a nature reserve and get countless birds coming into my garden, and as sappy as it sounds, I do get pleasure in feeding them, and see them come into the garden to feast on the various snacks of fat balls (home made, curtesy of the meat from the George Foreman Lean Green fat Bursting grilling machine, or whatever the hell its called, and seed from a huge 25kg bag of seed, made into a balls, then put in the freezer to go solid) seed and bread, etc. Anyway after going to many a Garden Centre, decided to make myself a nice spanky, I mean swanky Bird Table, using scraps of wood left over from all my other projects, Had to buy the upright post, and one square piece, but all in all, cost me £8 to make using new and scraps of timber, etc.

Now one of the beat up, old run down items that has been in my garden since I bought the house a couple of years ago, and was maybe, but doubt it, in its prime 30 years ago when it was built, was my Shed, built in 1977, using discoloured mouldy Blockwork, an asbestos roof and a rotten door and window. And next door to it, what the previous owners considered to be a greenhouse, was seriously old and falling down, which was to me a future pile of rubble and bonfire wood, regardless to say, few weeks after moving in, it was gone!!!!

In place and on the site of the old green house will be built a nice new big wooden greenhouse circa 14' x 9', ready for 2010. And where the old shed was, is, I slowly refurbished it to make it look nice and new, painted it, replaced the wooden door, replaced the window, replaced the rood and painted it, now it look hugely different, and at the end of this I will show a before and after picture, next to each other!!!

What a WWO - Weekend Wash Out!!!!

Well, there was me looking forward to the weekend, and thinking what things I could get up to in the garden, but unfortunatly was pretty pissed off at the god damn awful weather we had, again!!! When will it stop raining????

Anyway, the most I could do was sand down some wood, and build a book case to house most of my gardening books.

Which was done and completed yesterday. I also potted up the various fruit twigs that I have got from either Focus, or from the Seed Swap on the Grow your Own website.

No pics of those today, but took some before when I did those.

But about a week ago I cut up some Mother in Laws Tongue and planted them in a propergator, to see if I can get them to grow, so as it stands, I now have 31 pieces of MILT attempting to root, so fingers crossed!!! I have 4 different leaves, well, you can hardly call them leaves, more like Spears!!!, but anyway, got 31 pieces cut up and planted, so here is what they look like in the Propergator.

And this is what I hope they will look like once established!!!!

Bonfire Night Madness...well the Saturday at least!

Well, as you can see from the previous post, I had done lots of cutting down of trees, bushes, and fences, ready for the insuing Bonfire night, I couldn't have nothing to burn!!!! So I cut, lopped, chopped, sawed and smashed a mixture of bushes, trees and bushes ready for the big burn off.

With the most shitty weather we had most of last week, it meant that all the wood was completely damp, the bushes saturated, and the chance of starting a fire near impossible, but I'm not a man who gives up easily, especially as it was bonfire night + 2 days (Saturday 7th Nov), and I had guests that were expecting a nice big roast of trees, so I did the thing that most insane people do!! I built up my pile, making sure it was as compacted as possible, and covered it all around with dry bits of newspaper, just to start it off, started lighting it, and as you would expect, the paper burnt, hit the wet bushes, and went out.


So thought the only way I shall get this going, is dowse it in petrol!!! So petrol can in hand, again started my little points of burning paper, then chucked on half a jug full of petrol, and it made a song like a dog.....Woooooooffffff!!!!!


By the end of the night, it had burnt down very well, I just had to keep moving it all around to make sure it all burnt, and nothing was left.


The following lunch time, it was still red hot, and smoldering away, so I collected all the little straggles of leaves, twigs, and wood that had escaped, and stoked the center, put them on, then watch them very quickly set a light again!!


By the late afternoon, all wood, bushes, trees, fences, etc was all burnt, leavinig a big empty space where it all was before, and I was left with a big pile of ash, smoking away, ready to cool down and be scattered onto my veggie patch, to enrich it with lots of nitrogen, ready to make my veggies grow nice and big next year. All I need to do now is get a delivery of horse s**t, which for the cost of delivery of £20, I can get 2 year old horse manure from a local stable yard!!!

Halloween weekends work!!!

Well, after getting over a severe case of Bad cold / Flu, I decided to get out into the garden, to do some serious work, having neglected my garden this last month or 2, as I have been in Los Angeles.

So with Bonfire night fast imposing, though I would trim some bushes, cut down some trees, and make way for the new fence by uprooting 40m of old fence, all ready to be burnt.

I'll also include a picture of the Banana plants when I bought them back in the summer, so you can see the difference of a few months and the growth of them since April/May!!

With seeing a Banana plant all pruned in a shop, thought it was time to cut back all my old leaves, and prepare it to be wrapped up in fleece ready for the frost winter that I'm sure we will be getting. The 'Nana tree is now cut and hiding in the Brick shed ready to emerge next spring and grow even bigger!!

Also decided to dig up about 10-12 Pepper plants that haven't bore any fruit, from the garden, to see if I can over winter them in pots in the house. Fingers crossed!!!

And finally planted the 6 fruit twigs I got on offer from Focus, so hopefully the wife will have lots of Raspberries, Tayberries, Blackcurrents and Blackberries to eat for next year, again, fingers crossed!!!