Frogspawn Already?

Horrah, The plastic greenhouse is up!

Spent a good day working outside, managed to get that up, and put it onto weed suppressing fabric. Moved loads of the paving slabs around, blinking heavy they were too, built a Heath Robinson cold frame, hopefully it will do the job and not collapse on top of any plants I put in it!!


Got my banana into the ground, in the "tropical" area, also put the cannas in and a few more plants. So nice to not be looking at all this stuff in pots, and so very glad I took the effort to bring them with us. Am trying bit by bit to get them into the ground, 'cos I didn't label them, duh me, it could be interesting to see what comes up where, amazing how at this time of the year everything coming up looks the same.


I have started sowing seeds! It is so exciting to be putting things into earth again!
Started on a variety of flowers, with the garden being so naked, thought I had better get some colour going.
Moved the sweet peas out to the newly erected plastic Greenhouse.
This weekend, 24th and 25th the weather was so bad more seed sowing was in order! Have now started on the vegetable side, got to get that allotment producing more than we can eat this year. So sowed, Leeks (4 various types), Aubergines and some tomatoes, got loads more tommies to sow, have decided that I would like to get a glut of these this year, so I can freeze them and use them in spag bol etc. throughout the year. It is just a matter of whether they ripen before the dreaded blight hits.
We have frogspawn in the pond! So much earlier this year than last, saw it on the 22nd. I have to say I did lend a helping hand, whilst faffing around putting up the greenhouse I found 2 amorous frogs at the back of the garden. He was hanging on to her for grim death, and she looked worn out! So with a bucket she got a helping hand into the pond. Thought I would save her froggy legs! Well they rewarded me by leaving a lovely pile of spawn. Got another load from my neighbour who had dug a trench, which had filled with water in this rainy weather, and they had laid there, bless! So that is now in the lake too.
Today is the 1st March. Sunny intervals, and bitterly cold wind.
Have spent the morning putting more stuff from pots into the ground, ........should have labelled them!
Still more pots to empty, but I feel as if I have made good progress.
Sister delivered my Birthday present early, hurrah! 4 bags of compost for my soil, and a bag of cobbles for around the pond...................I should write a list every year! So 3 bags are already on the soil, which helps it look better, it hides the claggy clay.


OH and neighbour cut down the boundary laurel hedge this week, the nice neighbour wants to put in fence panels, so have saved the wire that was already here as a sort of boundary hedge, and will putting it up against the panels to grow some climbers. He now has to get the stumps out, which looks like a challenge.
Sold some stuff on E-bay, so am ever hopeful that we can afford the decking this year, only trouble is car failed it's MOT this morning(£50) and the repairs cost £72. Sod's law really I suppose! Oh and the tax is due on it. I am sure it would be cheaper to keep a horse! (and think of all that free manure too!)

Gardening Weekend

Gardening Weekend,

What a fabulous weekend it was, both with the weather, which felt positively balmy for February, and the amount done in the garden!OH found a pallet a work which he bought home for me........I do love a pallet, so versatile, I think he had thought he was going to have most of it for kindling, but you can't waste good boards when you have a compost heap to build, so I bagsied them!My attack on the back of the garden started Friday, I needed some more sandstone to edge the pond, and had seen some behind the horrid wire fence that was here, so did an investigation and discovered the boundary wooden fence was quite a way back behind the laurels, sooooooo down came the wire fence, out came the sandstone, plus a few more slabs, and then I started on the laurel hedge with a saw!!Did about half until was too pooped and our friend turned up to drop round some onion sets, and I mentioned I could have done with him and his chainsaw earlier! Well being a kind chap he promised to arrive with it the next day to finish the bit I had started!So now it is all cut back, it doesn't look very pretty, but I am hoping it will green up in the next couple of months.

I made a compost bin from pallets and old bits of wood, leaf container has been moved back, and I have gained 3-4 feet of garden!! So VERY happy!Mind you when I stood back and looked at the pile of laurel it was a bit daunting, so got the incinerator going and managed to burn a fair amount of it last night, and was back out there this morning cutting it up and now have a pile of "burn" logs, and have filled Mum and mine's green bins, and have 2 sheets full to take to the tip. So if the rain holds off another bonfire tonight, and I do love a good bonfire, memories of childhood in Northwood Hills at my Aunt and Uncles, burning all their garden waste, with a mug of cocoa and a packet of crisps! It used to be quite an adventure I remember.Dragged the girls out and let them take out thier pyromanical tendencies on the fire, they soon discovered wet laurel leaves make the most amazing popping noise like fireworks, so it kept the 3 of us amused for quite a while, we even dragged the bench nearby to sit and watch, whilst my very kind hubby made the roast inside.Hubby put a lid on the old house water tank, now a water butt, complete with on/off tap running directly to my bog garden, I had laid the piping but couldn't find a tap to control it, so gave it to him as a mission. He has done a great job, just waiting for the rain to fill it and to see if we have any leaks!Chainsaw friend and wife, who have a plot near mine, turned up on Sunday armed with a plastic greenhouse from Morrisons, HORRAH! He had noticed this house hadn't got a greenhouse, which I really miss, and commented on who was going to start the seeds for the plot then? (I usually got them going and divided them out, as they are really busy peeps) Mentioned I had my eye on this plastic g'house but no money left this month, an lo and behold they turn up with one. The condition is I get all the seeds started, which is fine by me. So this morning after the laurel clearup I have flattened an area for it, am putting down weed supressing membrane, and hopefull some slabs over the top of that. If I can get the rest of the wood burnt today, I can get the greenhouse up tomorrow hopefully, and start to get some seeds started, as I am beginning to get itchy fingers! (Especially when the weather is as good as it was this weekend)Only gave up out there today cos I have housework to do (so why am I sitting here???) and was feeling peckish.Well had better get on with that housework so I can get outside and have another burn up!

First Try

Getting Started-Blog and Garden!

Valentines Day 2007

Well, here we go then, me with a blog. The kids will be well impressed!


Am hoping to use it as a diary, to record what I have done in the garden and up at the allotment, and when and why. Successes and failures.(plenty of the later I am sure!)


Seems easier to do it on the puter than keeping handwritten notes, which I always start.........but get too busy to finish!


Have just moved house, HORRAH! Well when I say "just" I mean August last year. It needed total renovation.
New kitchen, bathroom, smell of dog pooh everywhere so new carpets, total redecoration, bricking up hatches, knocking down stud walls, etc. etc! Luckily we were living with my Mum, cos the smell took weeks to clear! We finally moved in I think it was October and then my thoughts turned to the garden.


Luckily (she says!) it was a bit of a blank canvas In the back, one huge cherry tree, 3 big skimmias, and a large rhododendron, the rest, on the right, was a mix of stinging nettles, (where I presume there had once been a vegey patch)the most enormous rhubarb clump,(now been sent to many allotment4all members) and a lawn, well I use that term loosely, not been cut in so long, when my sister kindly strimmed it we were left with straw n mud!
A patio at the front.

The front garden was a bit if a disaster too, marestail (GRRRRRRRRR) everywhere, and a few uncared for shrubs. I can see where there once were flower borders, so am following that line as I get to grips with diggin up the brambles, weeds etc.

But on the PLUS side, at the side of the house there is a peach tree, and the peaches we got off it were fabulous!!

So now the house was decorated, what to do with the garden, on the cheap!

Now I do like lawns, but, would rather look at flowers, and lets face it, lawns need mowing, and that would have been another job for me, would rather spend the time up the lottie or weeding.

So first plan of action was to remove the lower lawn, I compromised on the one around the cherry tree, cos the OH wanted "somewhere that has grass", and the girls needed the grass for their guinea pigs to munch on in the summer.(Sadly now down to one as Cinnamon left this realm a few weeks back.)

So armed with old pallets, an electric jigsaw and a hammer I started creating edging for the proposed beds.

These I have decided to do as lasagna beds. Packing case cardboard over the lawn, then a layer of leaves, then a layer of compost, layer of manure and topped up with the soil or should I say, clay from the pond. (more on the pond later) These will be topped up over the year hopefully, with more compost and manure to be dictated by finances!

Am really pleased with how it is beginning to look, plants I had dug up from our old house are starting to go in, and I bagged a few bargains at our local nusery and Homebase too. Have stopped visiting garden centers etc. now though, just FAR too tempting when you have a blank canvas!

Then I decided in January what I really needed was a pond again. My poor fish that moved house with us, are swimming around in an old water tank at my Mum's, and that must be sooooo boring, plus I love to encourage the wildlife into the garden as I try to be as organic as possible. (though looking at the marestail in the front I may have to change my ideas!)

So on the 20th of January wonderful friends of our arrived, armed with wellies and spades, and enthusiam,(not to mention a few cups of tea and beer and wine in the evening.......well it helps the aches n pains!)) and by the end of the day a hole in the ground was dug, and my beds had mounds of clay all over them! I was so excited, had to do a happy dance!

Of course had to order the liner and underlay, (didn't go for the butyl this time as it was twice the price and I figured with a 40 year guarantee it would outlive me!) and the day it arrived, had to be one of the windiest in ages, had to get my poor Mum to stand on it whilst I placed rocks, planters buckets of mud etc on it to keep it in place.

Then the filling, well it took several hours, and of course as life goes was not the easiest job, hook up the hose and off we go............nope, my hose end did not match the new tap, so after trying binding it up and getting soaked a trip to focus for new attachments had to happen, so by the time I was filling it was getting dark, releasing the buckets etc. the let the liner slide in gently in the near dark was exciting, especially when I nearly fell in, so had to call it a day!

Next morning woke up to SNOW! I couldn't believe it, but at least the garden looked good, not the building site that I had left the evening before!

Since then I have had another great mate stay from overseas, whilst the boys were down the pub, she and I tackled moving more soil, leveling out the area that will eventually become a deck area, and covering it with leftover pond underlay, to hopefully keep the weeds suppressed, and building a bog garden at the edge of the pond/lake.

Over the following days the liner got buried, and the edges raised or lowered where needed, and the beach end (shallow to let any mammals that may fall in climb out, or drunken visitors???) got a few bags of shingle.

The stepping slabs on the pathway got moved and the spaces filled with more shingle, and cobbles to give a more natural (hopefully) effect.

Picked up the last of my "big" plants from various people that had been babysitting them until we moved and got the garden started, so have plonked my cabbage palm by the pond, and put my bamboo, in its pot to restrict its rambling ways, at the back of the pond.

The bog garden has a couple of my astilbes thrown in, I am assuming that is what they are because of course I didn't label anything when we moved and they are not showing any growth yet! I also have a carex that cardinalflower from A4All sent me, and will be re potting my Mum's gunnera soon, a piece of which will join the bog.

Yesterday I decided HAD to be lottie morning.

Have not been up to my allotment since at least November so I was fearing the worst, especially as it has been so mild.

But actually I was pleasantly surprised, apart from the little box thing I have to store my bits n bobs being blown over by the high winds, everything else was deal able with.

So glad I managed to get some of the beds manured and covered in tarps back in October, has saved me a lot of work.

The weeds hadn't taken too much of a hold, and I even managed to come back with bag fulls of harvest, which is very welcome.

Leeks, Swede, Parsnips, Brussel Sprouts, Cabbage (amazed as I have such bad club root, that liming helped), Chard Bright Lights, all the usual fodder for this time of the year.

The pigeons had decimated the tops of my brussels, and I actually disturbed them munching away when I went up, flipping cheek!

So spent a lovely morning digging a few beds over, gathering compost which got bought back to the house for the garden beds, pulling down my old Runner Bean stems, cutting back dead flower stalks etc. etc.

Saw 3 ladybirds, bit early I thought, and disturbed a frog in my pond up there, no moving that for a while then!