Tulips, Snowdrops and Bluebells

 

Whilst out walking Ava, I saw the most wonderful display of white tulips. I have decided to have white tulips, snowdrop and bluebells in my garden next year. It will be lovely to have a little patch of white and green, then followed by a riot of summer colour.

One place to buy white bluebells is at Farmer Gracy.

Wild Flower Gardening

 

I've been inspired by councils and other authorities deciding to ditch grass verges and instead have wild flower meadow strips instead.

The Beloved and I have removed weeds from a flower bed. We've planted pansies, and I've sown poppies and a wild flower seed mix. The bed is looking better than it did this morning, and hopefully, it will be in bloom in a few weeks times. I'm fully expecting the pansies to be overshadowed by the taller wild flowers, but they will be pretty until they start growing.

Next year, I'm hoping to plant a cottage garden. The aim is to have riot of colour, with very little maintenance.

My First Tatties

Look! Look! LOOK!

These are a very first potatoes I have eve grown. I took some potatoes, stuck them in a ventilated bucket, covered then with a layer of soil, and then forgot about them until green shoots came up. Another layer of soil was added, followed by more forgetting. (Lather, rinse, repeat.) Et viola! I now have tatties!

Can you tell I'm a little excited?!

Mamma, I Miss The Beach

Along time ago, in a garden not too far away, that's right, the one out the front, although the back garden is also involved., there was sand. Not soft, fine sand, but builders sand, the sand used in mortar. More on the sand a little later.

Before Ava came to live with us, the big back gate blew down in a storm. This left a space large enough to get a car in and out very simply. The back garden was open to the lane behind the house. One of the requirements for getting a rescue dog is to have a secure garden, and we did not meet this criterion. Work began to create a parking space at the back, and a nice high wall, with a door. Unfortunately the lane behind our house is so wiggly and narrow the delivery trucks from the builders merchant was not able to deliver the sand, cement, bricks and breeze blocks to the back. They were put in the front garden, and had to be carried/wheeled through the house. I managed to move at least 1 tonne of breeze blocks.

The builder misjudged the amount of sand required. He found the brick pavers out the back had been laid on a lovely amount of sand, and use the old sand rather than the new. (Told you the sand would return.) This left almost a tonne of sand in the back garden. I have been thinking 'I must remove this' for months and months.

Today is the day it starts. The first five buckets of sand have been moved from the front to the back. A plastic painting sheet has placed on the brick pavers, and I'm slowly moving my little dune.

Ava is quite delighted with this. She has a beach in her back garden! She sat down on the sand and the look on her face was priceless.

Today's To Do
✓ make bed
✓ cycle for 10 minutes
✓ wash laundry
✓ dry laundry
o put away laundry
o plant strawberries
✓ move two five seven buckets of sand from the front garden to the back
o declutter the porch

Moving the sand will definitely count to my exercise minutes! Whilst I'm filling the bucket I'm squatting, and then actually carrying it physical effort too.

Gardening and Laundry

A friend dropped off some strawberry plants yesterday. The Ava loves them, and thinks the addition of a salad bar to the garden is awesome. Today’s task is to find a place where I can put the strawberries away from the canine snacker! 

Decluttering proper is happening in the laundry room. I’m now up to four half-used cans of paint to go out, along with various random bits and pieces. The plan had been to declutter, clean and then to tidy, but I’m now seriously considering adding painting onto the to-do list. Most of the room is tiled, so it will be a little bit of wall, a the ceiling. The room is small, and the ceiling low. It is something I could manage by myself. 

After Covid-19, I’m going to have to Belfast sink, dishwasher and washing machine removed. The washing machine is 16 years old, and is starting to make weird noises. We’ll put down some new flooring. A new washing machine will be bought, to match the dryer. The dryer isn’t current in that room as there’s no space. I’ll have a bench top put in above the washer and dryer (both front loaders), and this will provide a lovely surface for sorting and folding laundry. 

The laundry opens off the mud room, and it’s in the mudroom where the dryer is just now. It’s also where my husband stores his Civil Defence/mountain rescue kit, in boxes on top of the dryer. When the boxes have been newly tidied it looks great, but the rest of the time it gets rather messy. When the dryer has moved, I’ll get a clothes rail, and his kit will have a dedicated space. There will be a hanging rack, a place for boots and shoes, and also a couple of boxes (hard hard hat, ruck sack etc).

Starting To Prepare for Christmas Dinner

I think I might have been bitten by the gardening bug. A few days ago I was learning about new potatoes for Christmas dinner. This idea pleased me. 

A bout 10cm of potting compost is placed in the bottom of a large container. Seed potatoes are placed on top, and then covered with potting compost. As the shoots grow up through the compost more compost is added. This continual banking up of the growing medium produces a good yield of potatoes.  

I feel the need to give it a go.

Green Beans!

I still get very excited going into the garden and picking veggies!  

Today, we added fresh green beans to dinner. From plant to pot was less than 5 minutes. There's also an extensive crop of lettuce, and oodles upon oodles of flowers and tiny green tomatoes. I'm looking forward to being able to adding them to my salads.

Mae'r Radish yn Dod!

"Mae'r radish yn dod!" is Welsh for 'The radishes are coming'. It's a line from a Peter Rabbit game my children played when they were little. At the end of a level radishes would fall from the sky and you had to catch them before they fell.

But, 'mae'r radish yn codi', my radishes are rising. They are growing and developing, and making me happy. 

First Bed Planted/Seeded

The first annexed raised bed has been planted/sewn. Standing with my back to Cat's front door, there's a few onion sets (tops just peeking up), and in amongst the onions, there's radish seeds. Next up are butternut squash seed, and 5 lettuce plants. These ones are 'come and pick again' types. You harvest just what you need from the outer leaves, rather than taking off the head. And the last one, right in the corner is a tomato tumbler.

I suspect the bed along with garden wall will get some butternut squash, onions, and nasturtiums. The central one will become sugar pea central, and I've no idea about the last one.

It's at times like this I really enjoy the vanilla and oatmeal soap I made. The oats give it just a little edge of 'extra' to get at the dirt.

Raised Beds

My back garden is still not ready for planting. The seeds I've sewn were going to have nowhere to call home. Thankfully, a friend has allowed me to annex her garden. I am very happy to be in her garden; it hasn't received much attention over the past year (she's been away, and the lodgers promised, but didn't do it). 

The garden has raised beds, made with wooden shuttering. There is a huge amount of bending and crouching. I'm so glad that my raised beds have a top wide enough to place my bum. It's going to be so very much easier in my beds than in her's. 

The weather has been uncharacteristically hot and sunny these last two weeks, and it is set to continue for the next two. This means the weeds are not too bad, but the soil is so dry. A few onion sets have been planted, and I've been clearing weeds and forking over the soil with a hand fork. A few weeks ago, we collected some manure. This will go on C's garden rather than mine, as I don't have one just now! It will improve the soil, and help with water retention.

Five Ways I'm Reducing and Recycling

I've recently been feeling really bad that my kitchen bin is full of non-recyclable plastics.  It's things like the clear plastic wrap over a chicken, or the bag my frozen peas were in. Then it struck me, the reason my bin is full of these things is because almost everything else I used to put into it is now being dealt with elsewhere. 

Creating a greener, more eco-friendly kitchen can be done step by step. I'm not doing all I can, but I keep moving in that direction. 

1. Meal Prep When we married we had very little money. It was not an option to let food go to waste. I often make extra portions at dinner. These are then boxed up, and are either frozen for future use or they become lunches. It's homemade ready meals. They are placed right at the top of the fridge to remind people to eat them, or labelled and put in the freezer.

Our local supermarket has a range of 'take out' meals. The containers are brilliant, strong and flexible, and can go from the freezer to the microwave. They can be used again and again.

2. Eat what you buy "£13 billion of food was wasted in the UK in 2015, approximately 7.3 million tonnes. The average household lost £470 a year because of avoidable food waste" Food Waste in England This is an area where I can struggle, but I'm definitely not throwing away £9 of uneaten food each week. I'll make it a goal for next month to track my spending in this area.

3. Kerbside recycling The vast majority of things that used to be put in the kitchen bin are now recycled.

4. Composting Fruit and veg peelings, tea bags, egg shells, paper, etc all find their way to the compost bin. I'm reusing a yogurt bucket to gather food scraps, and at dinner time the bucket is emptied into the compost bin. I'm so looking forward to my first compost made in my own garden.

5. Beeswax Wraps and Stretchy Silicone Covers I've been trying to reduce the amount of cling film I use. Recently I made some beeswax wraps, and these are great for wrapping fruit and cheese. I'm currently waiting for a delivery of stretchy silicone covers.

Fire Up the Barbie!

We bought this little beauty today, a gas bbq. We decided to leave it in its box until we can get the weatherproof cover for it. Hopefully the shop will have restocked by next weekend.

The garden furniture is due to arrive this week, and more seeds have been sewn. I'll be ordering a couple of tonnes of top soil too. It's all go!

Loo Roll Pots

I saw the idea a while back, and decided to give it a try. Take the centre for a loo roll, make four snips in the bottom, and fold them up. This produces a little plant pot for seeds or cuttings. As they grow their roots will emerge through the cardboard, and the the cardboard will start to decompose.

On the left, there's two mint cuttings, and on the right, sugar snap pea seeds. I'll plant some more peas next week. 

The table the tray is sitting on was bought about 15 years ago, and it's been outside in all weathers. It's seen better days, and now it's been put into retirement as a gardening table. A new table and a couple of benches have been ordered. They will look rather swish in comparison. I'm also going to get some solar powered lights for the garden. There will be garland-like ones for the front and back walls. Once the raised beds have been filled with soil, I'll get some larger ones with a stake on the bottom and put them into the beds.

Gardening Has Started!

My first real act of gardening in the back garden has happened!  We have made a new composting bin.  It was a £15 garden bin from B&Q. I marked where the holes should go, and the Beloved used the drill. After the holes had been drilled, he went over them with a sharp blade, removing any burrs. I followed with a damp, soapy cloth to remove the chalk marks.

A layer of scrunched up newspaper was placed in the bottom. Then a layer of soil from the front garden. Next was the veggie scraps I've been collecting, and it was topped off by some potting compost that has been lying around since last summer. There were a few nice, juicy worms in the mix. The soil and potting compost are both nicely moist, so I didn't water them.

We've positioned it just across from the back door. We wanted it close to the kitchen, not right beside the door (ants), but where we will see it each and every day. This will help me take good care of it.

Compost!

With the departure of the sheds, my mind is drifting towards composting. It would be great to have a composting thingy-do in the back garden. I had been wondering if I can re-purpose on of the large black containers. There's one out the back, and two at the front. These could be placed in the back garden, in a corner, and the one furthest into the corner could be the compost one, and the other two could be for growing stuff.

And, I've just realised why this would not work. The compost bin would need a lid, and I've no lid for the bin. Perhaps I could buy an outdoor bin with a lid, and  drill a few holes in the bottom and sides of the bin. It could still be tucked away out, but still accessible. 

Cement Blocks and Assorted Rubbish

The most massive amount of decluttering has been done today, and not by me! All of the concrete blocks from the old wall have been removed! In addition, various bits of rubbish, like the old 4-section garden gate, a bucket half fulled with concrete, and stuff, has been removed. The garden is now a chunk bigger, and there's a parking space for the car. A massive 'Thank you' to Brian for organising this. 

We have quite a number of brick pavers left over and a tonne of builders sand. Some of these supplies will be used to make a planter in the front garden, but there will still be quite a lot left over. A friend was talking about making a garden path. I'm pretty sure I can provide them with the materials to make a nice little path. 

As can be seen from the image above, the walls really need to be painted! They might need to be re-rendered too, or patched, but for the moment, a paint job will do.

'Tis Done! The Rubble's Gone!

It's time to celebrate with a photograph of stuff that isn't there! The second pile of rubble has been moved into the planter. It's gone! 

And here's Ava enjoying the space formerly occupied by the first pile of rubble.

It is very hard to describe the sense of elation when the last shovelful of rubble was moved. It was glorious to think there would be no more to move. The task was complete; the space tidied. The garden is one step closer to the wonderful images in my head. I'm so looking forward to a time when the garden is no longer grey, but wall white, and the planters and pots brimming over with greenery.

Shovel, Shovel, Soil and Rubble

Ah, you know it's getting bad when I start breaking out puns! More rubble and soil moved by means of a shovel. All being well, tomorrow will be my last day of rubble. Again, no point in having a picture of rubble, instead, a picture of lettuce, one of the crops I would like to grown. A few years ago, I was able to get some fantastic lettuce - you pick the leaves around the outside rather than cutting the head off. It means there's always the freshest lettuce. 

Then it will be time to purchase masonry paint, a new brush, and a little bottle of topical weed killer. The garden walls (bar one) are old, and some plants have made themselves at home in them. They will not survive the spring.

A list of gardening tasks:

• finish moving rubble
• remove large concrete blocks
• remove garden rubbish from the parking area.
• buy masonry paint, brush and topical weed killer
• apply weed killer to weeds growing in the garden walls
• paint the walls behind and the inside of the planters
• remove wooden baton on right hand wall
• paint remaining garden walls and back of laundry room
• install cleats for washing line
• add compost to planters
• add soil to planters
• paint outside of planters
• pour sand between pavers that have been lifted/re-set
• plant seeds

My Piles have Diminished!

Rubble, rubble, rubble! My life is full of rubble. However, only two more days, and all the back garden rubble will be in the planters! I will not be sad to see the end of it.

There's no need for more grey, rubble-y pictures. Instead, we have raspberries.

Garden Work Continues

The second pile of rubble creating has been started. It's slow going, but it's going. I decided against posting yet another picture of rubble and my grey garden. Instead, a picture of something I wish to see growing in my garden later in the year. It