After the weekends log construction then we were eagerly awaiting the pergola but it had to be delayed until Monday. Which is sad but these things happen. I've been strugging to bring the beans up - the dwarf (short) beans are goinging but never developing their first set of leaves so are then dying - I think I need to improve the ground and get everything started earlier. The second round of courgettes are starting to come up but the promised rain hasn't happened so they are a bit dry. The Rue seeds, carrots and beetroots are coming up well.
I've been advised on the gravel - wickes - and I have to peer over a wall tomorrow to see some highly rated gravel in a neighbours garden. The lengths this garden is sending me to! It'll all be worth is in the end - now if i could just get those beans to grow like the weeds.......
Friday 27 June 2008
Sunday 22 June 2008
June Gales
Got up at the crack of dawn today to close the window owing to amount of noise the local bird population was making - this is a good thing - but not at 3.30am. At a (slighty) more reasonable hour of 8am I got up to earn my brownie points so that when 'he' woke up I could go out and play in teh garden. The challenge today is to get the log borders in for the lawn edging before the pergola is put in on Tuesday (so excited) the circles are about 220cm across and theres two of them so we got logs at Homesbase 10% day yesterday as they aren't cheap.
Just for anyone's interest the way to discover the circumference of a circle is Pie *Diameter.
Isn't it.
'he' got started on the making of the circles while I went to Homebase to get some more logs. Its cost quite a bit to do, I wish I'd found a cheaper solution now but I wanted those curves!
Heres the finished result!
The gales blew over a tomato plant and a few of the runner beans which were just starting to recover, some of the green beans have started to come up from the second sowing but none of the runner beans have germinated yet. The squash are picking up but I could have fitted so much more in I'm a bit miffed with myself. Theres always next year I suppose!
Just for anyone's interest the way to discover the circumference of a circle is Pie *Diameter.
Isn't it.
'he' got started on the making of the circles while I went to Homebase to get some more logs. Its cost quite a bit to do, I wish I'd found a cheaper solution now but I wanted those curves!
Heres the finished result!
The gales blew over a tomato plant and a few of the runner beans which were just starting to recover, some of the green beans have started to come up from the second sowing but none of the runner beans have germinated yet. The squash are picking up but I could have fitted so much more in I'm a bit miffed with myself. Theres always next year I suppose!
Thursday 19 June 2008
Damn Slugs
Went out this morning and found all three of my courgette plants had been eaten off at the base of their stems. Don't know wether it was slugs or snails but have had to plant again - have doubled up this time at each planting point and will take out the weeker seedling when they get established. Next year I'll harden teh plants off sooner as i thing thats one reason why they haven't got big and strong. Its strange because I normally have more success with courgettes than any other veg.
Beetroot are coming up nicely - very pretty seedlings, and the carrots are just beginning to appear. No sign of the Rue yet but I'm hoping to make a hedge out of them. The reseeding of the dwarf beans hasn't shown any signs of germinating yet but I'll give it another couple of days - just one of the broad beans has come up, they are taking longer outside, i hope that nothings eaten them, I think I have a tendancy to plant seends too deep.
I recommend the gardening blog on the BBC Garden site - loads of handy tips and helpful peopal, I'm certainly going to be planning my veg garden better next year, maybe even a herb cicle in the middle.
Beetroot are coming up nicely - very pretty seedlings, and the carrots are just beginning to appear. No sign of the Rue yet but I'm hoping to make a hedge out of them. The reseeding of the dwarf beans hasn't shown any signs of germinating yet but I'll give it another couple of days - just one of the broad beans has come up, they are taking longer outside, i hope that nothings eaten them, I think I have a tendancy to plant seends too deep.
I recommend the gardening blog on the BBC Garden site - loads of handy tips and helpful peopal, I'm certainly going to be planning my veg garden better next year, maybe even a herb cicle in the middle.
Thursday 12 June 2008
Wildlife
Having been in the new office for 2 months and getting in early (8) means that I see the local wildlife on the way to work - we often see rabbits hopping around and there is a jay which has the left hand side of the cat park covered and who always distracts me in team meetings!! However this morning I saw a fox and it was beautiful, such an amazing sight - unlikely to ever get one at home but it was the most fabulous colours.
Oh and the bathroom is painted and I've been given three bigger tomato seedlings to plant out - the heavy rains last night were a good excuse not to put them out until the weekend.
Oh and the bathroom is painted and I've been given three bigger tomato seedlings to plant out - the heavy rains last night were a good excuse not to put them out until the weekend.
Monday 9 June 2008
And Beans for Dinner!
Stopped at at a well known chain store this evening (not giving them any more advertising as their plants were gasping for water this evening which was just mean!) and bought some meadow seed for the front and some carrot and beetroot seed for the veg patch.
Rushed outside to see how the beans were doing - they were better than yesterday but decided that even with the plant feed they aren't strong enough to support themselves so planted another set of beans inbetween the plants which are already there. Sowed teh carrots, bettroot and rue herb along the borders and then decided to be a bit mad bad and dangerous and randomly planted some dwarf beans in places around the veg patch - the theory being that they will give some shade to the other plants.
I put seven sunflowers which were between 5 and 9 inches tall along the side fence although I'm not too confident of a couple of them which looked distinctly miserable. They all got a good water and I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope that they get on ok. Bathroom looks so much nicer painted don't know why I didn't do it before!
Rushed outside to see how the beans were doing - they were better than yesterday but decided that even with the plant feed they aren't strong enough to support themselves so planted another set of beans inbetween the plants which are already there. Sowed teh carrots, bettroot and rue herb along the borders and then decided to be a bit mad bad and dangerous and randomly planted some dwarf beans in places around the veg patch - the theory being that they will give some shade to the other plants.
I put seven sunflowers which were between 5 and 9 inches tall along the side fence although I'm not too confident of a couple of them which looked distinctly miserable. They all got a good water and I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope that they get on ok. Bathroom looks so much nicer painted don't know why I didn't do it before!
Beans for Breakfast
Woke up to the sun shining across our gardens - I really need to take a picture as its a very different light to the evening sun which is when I take most photos of the garden. Went outside to see how the beans had fared over night and the next door neighbour was outside too and offered me some short beans which looking at the holes in the leaves of my runner beans i gratefully accepted!
Sunday 8 June 2008
New levels of dirt
Started out this morning with breakfast in the garden which was lovely, then 'he' got started on shifting soil and I put up net all around the veg patch for snail/slug damage limitation and to stop cats getting at the soil. After I had done that I got the paintbrush out and started to paint the bathroom which is a long job as painting brick seems to take hours and hours.
Lunch majically appeared and it barely touched the sides I was so hungry, I needed a break from the painting and so planted out the green beans, dwarf beans, squash and courgettes in - then i went back to painting. 'he' then went to Edinburgh (nothing I said honestly) to attend a conference and I continued to paint, I stopped briefly to put another wheelbarrow of rubbish in the skip but after finishing the first pot of paint and knowing a second coat was needed I called it a day.
On the painting anyway. When I came back indoors i did the obligatory hoover around the kitchen and the dining room which always get muddy as we come in and out, and noticed that my vine gourds were bolting horizontally. The only thing to do was repot them and stake them carefully to give them the right idea but only after I'd had a bath. Partly because the gourds needed help but also because the runner beans were looking a bit wimpy I mixed up some plant feed (which makes the water go blue - most perkulier) and watered the front garden, the indoor pots and the veg patch. After all of that i had my supper - then it was too dark to take a picture!
Lunch majically appeared and it barely touched the sides I was so hungry, I needed a break from the painting and so planted out the green beans, dwarf beans, squash and courgettes in - then i went back to painting. 'he' then went to Edinburgh (nothing I said honestly) to attend a conference and I continued to paint, I stopped briefly to put another wheelbarrow of rubbish in the skip but after finishing the first pot of paint and knowing a second coat was needed I called it a day.
On the painting anyway. When I came back indoors i did the obligatory hoover around the kitchen and the dining room which always get muddy as we come in and out, and noticed that my vine gourds were bolting horizontally. The only thing to do was repot them and stake them carefully to give them the right idea but only after I'd had a bath. Partly because the gourds needed help but also because the runner beans were looking a bit wimpy I mixed up some plant feed (which makes the water go blue - most perkulier) and watered the front garden, the indoor pots and the veg patch. After all of that i had my supper - then it was too dark to take a picture!
Thursday 5 June 2008
The earth moved
Got home and decided that as the skip is going tomorrow I'd get the last few things sorted out, so I stained the gravel boards, put the tools in the shed, took the lawnmower out of the dining room and then had the bright idea to try and move soil from in front to the tellis to the vegetable patch.
Cubic Meter of soil weighs about 1.5 tonnes.
I did 7 wheelbarrows full of soil - thats digging it up, shovelling it in the barrow and then shovelling it out again. I'm sure its good exercise - which is just as well as I have many more barrows worth to move. Just not tonight.
Cubic Meter of soil weighs about 1.5 tonnes.
I did 7 wheelbarrows full of soil - thats digging it up, shovelling it in the barrow and then shovelling it out again. I'm sure its good exercise - which is just as well as I have many more barrows worth to move. Just not tonight.
Wednesday 4 June 2008
Shed
We both left work early at got home for 5 - with a darkening sky we took all the shed bits out of the bag and stood up all the panels. There wern't any instructions at all & we had to rely on a YouTube video which I'd seen and some photographs which we'd taken at the shed place. a few things did end up in the wrong place but after 3 hours it looks good - the windows were a bit hairy as they are glass and i had to nail batons around them to hold them in place.
Oh and the threatening sky did carry out its promise - it rained for a good hour that we were out there - all good fun! There is mud everywhere outside, even to the point that puddles had formed, we have to get a few more things in the skip before it goes so another evening tomorrow methinks.
Tuesday 3 June 2008
Old Garden
This is my old veg patch - the new one is about three times the size of this. I had courgettes, a tiny apple tree, purple sprouting broccoli and some other things too. I don't think I have a pic of the whole garden but I do miss the washing line!
Monday 2 June 2008
Highs and Lows
Well I thought I'd seen it all when on Saturday evening as we were resting our sore limbs in the living room a car pulled up, a cry of concrete rang across the street and two strapping lads leapt out of a beat up escort and started to take concrete out of the skip. Then this evening a white transit (always trouble) pulled up and dumped a broken toilet and a load of other rubbish in our skip! 'he' jumped up and asked what they thought they were doing at which point they drove off waving a certain hand signal behind them. Bloody cheek! We got their number however and will report them for fly tipping.
Found out loads of useful links about gardens (as we are getting to the stage where we might be able to grow something in it) so decided to put them on the blog. The nice friendly carpenter rang this evening to say that he could do the pergola in three weeks time, yippee! Which should pretty much be the deadline for us getting all the hard landscaping in and the majority of the vegetable plants that we have in pots should be ready - the gourds need more time anyway.
And the shed appeared as well which is great although the rain had set in by the time we got home tonight so no chance of getting it up.
Found out loads of useful links about gardens (as we are getting to the stage where we might be able to grow something in it) so decided to put them on the blog. The nice friendly carpenter rang this evening to say that he could do the pergola in three weeks time, yippee! Which should pretty much be the deadline for us getting all the hard landscaping in and the majority of the vegetable plants that we have in pots should be ready - the gourds need more time anyway.
And the shed appeared as well which is great although the rain had set in by the time we got home tonight so no chance of getting it up.
Sunday 1 June 2008
Oooooowwwwww
I hurt this morning when I woke up.
I hurt even worse when I got up.
But we only have the skip for the week and so we had to get going, the weather was fantastic with occasional damp light rain and my sister appeared to help out as well. Lil sis dug the ground, 'he' took out the rest of the cement blocks to the skip and laid the slabs for the shed.
I got out my saw and drill and started to make raised beds from stakes and gravel boards for the veg patch and then got the trellis bolted together and we put it in the ground - It was like a barn raising! I might add that this is the edited version with my drill running out of charge twice, me getting stuck under the trellis at one point and the drill bit slipping and it getting stuck in teh wood - all cheerfully taken in my stride - not.
I put the B&Q arch together ( the only one in the world which is 100m) and dug it in - which involved hacksawing off one side as I wasn't about to dig it into cement! We dug in the gravel boards round the veg patch and got the soil evened out although we can still put a lot more in from the other side of the trellis which is supposed to be lower. In the photograph you can see how I haven't finished staining the wood yet, the green beans will grow up this side of the trellis and the sunflowers will grow up the other side - slugs notwithstanding. I have a range of ideas to stop them hopefully......
Oh and the green beans little side beans do drop off - I found them in the soil. The tomatos are doing well but they need to be hardened off and next year i need to start earlier as they are still very small, as are my pepper plants.
I hurt even worse when I got up.
But we only have the skip for the week and so we had to get going, the weather was fantastic with occasional damp light rain and my sister appeared to help out as well. Lil sis dug the ground, 'he' took out the rest of the cement blocks to the skip and laid the slabs for the shed.
I got out my saw and drill and started to make raised beds from stakes and gravel boards for the veg patch and then got the trellis bolted together and we put it in the ground - It was like a barn raising! I might add that this is the edited version with my drill running out of charge twice, me getting stuck under the trellis at one point and the drill bit slipping and it getting stuck in teh wood - all cheerfully taken in my stride - not.
I put the B&Q arch together ( the only one in the world which is 100m) and dug it in - which involved hacksawing off one side as I wasn't about to dig it into cement! We dug in the gravel boards round the veg patch and got the soil evened out although we can still put a lot more in from the other side of the trellis which is supposed to be lower. In the photograph you can see how I haven't finished staining the wood yet, the green beans will grow up this side of the trellis and the sunflowers will grow up the other side - slugs notwithstanding. I have a range of ideas to stop them hopefully......
Oh and the green beans little side beans do drop off - I found them in the soil. The tomatos are doing well but they need to be hardened off and next year i need to start earlier as they are still very small, as are my pepper plants.
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