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Gardening

In the garden again

Aug 21st, 2010
by Dan.
27 comments

There is a secret to gardening that they don’t tell you in any of the books or TV shows. But it’s a secret that’s well worth knowing none-the-less:

Always take your glasses off before you go out to do some work in the garden.

This year alone I have lost two pairs of glasses in our back garden. These joined the pair I lost last year and also possibly my iPod touch (the loss of which still brings a tear to my eye in my more unguarded moments).

It happens the same way each time. I go out there vowing not to take them off my head. Then I start to dig a hole or something and begin to sweat. And as we’ve established already (on BBC Radio no less), I’m a very sweaty man.

Soon the glasses start to start to slip off my head when I’m bent over. And so, subconsciously, I take them off my head and put them down somewhere safe.

And they are never seen again.

Of course it’s obviously not me who’s to blame. No, that would be ridiculous. it’s those bloody megalomaniac chickens, that’s who. I’m not entirely sure why they keep stealing my glasses, but I’m pretty sure it’s something to do with incorporating the lenses in some sort of death ray device.

Anyhow, I’m three pairs of glasses down but I’ve finally learnt my lesson. Today I’ve spent about seven hours in the garden and my specs have remained firmly on the lounge mantelpiece, well out of the reach of kleptomaniac hens. I WIN!

Plus, I got a hell of a lot done up there today. There is nothing more satisfying than a bit of physical graft.

The main thing I did was a complete clean and disinfect of the chicken coop. I’ve been having awful problems with Red Mite recently. In fact I suspect they may have even had something to do with Evel Knievel’s death last month. She was broody and refused to get out of the coop and I think the little bastards may have caused her to become anemic.

I spent about £20 on various sprays and powders, which appeared to work for a little bit but within a week or two they were swarming as bad as before.

So now I’ve bought an industrial sized container of “Poultry Shield” and have thoroughly washed and scrubbed the coop again. I intend on doing it all again next weekend too. I hope it works as I’m not sure what I’ll do if it doesn’t. Apparently painting the inside of the coop with Creosote works wonders, but you aren’t actually allowed to buy the real stuff anymore.

While I had everything out I also gave the coop a rather spiffing coat of paint. I must admit I’m rather pleased with the outcome.

I also painted the kid’s wendy house as well (you can see it in the background of the photo). I have vague ideas of turning it into the Duckhouse for my imminent Indian Runners. However it’s current function as the place where I store all the crap is pretty useful too.

I’m half wondering if I should make a run for the ducks too. The chickens have one, although I nearly always leave it open so they can free range in the entire garden. However it can be quite useful when we go away so the neighbors don’t need to worry about letting them in and out. Any advice from people in the know would be gratefully received.

However, that’s something to mull over. Tomorrow, providing the weather is ok, I have a list of other jobs to tackle. I’m going to extend the guinea pig run, convert the sandpit to a rhubarb bed, and extending my tyre strawberry patch.

Things are pretty fun on Old McHughes farm at the moment.

With a quack quack here and a quack quack there

Aug 18th, 2010
by Dan.
23 comments

I made a conscious decision this year not to bother with the garden. What with training and fundraising for the walk I figured the last thing I needed was putting pressure on myself to maintain a bunch of cabbages too.

So I just fed and watered the chickens, collected the eggs, and pretty much ignored the jungle rapidly springing up around me. This is the tidiest section of it. Forgive the quality of the photo but it was taken in low light on my crappy phone camera:

Of course the fact my petrol strimmer gave up the ghost didn’t really help. There are large sections of my garden which are too undulating and wild to be tackled with a mere lawnmower. And once the nettles and the brambles realised I was not going to be hacking at them every couple of weeks they lost no time in reclaiming vast swathes in the name of mother nature.

I did plant some veg though, namely a couple of pumpkin plants which I knew would be both vigorous and prickly enough to dissuade the weeds and the eager beaks of the chickens. I also planted a load of strawberries in tyres in the front yard. This has worked really well and I intend extending my collection next year with all the triffid like runners that are sprouting the moment.

Also unbenown to me I had unwittingly planted some potatoes. Or rather the potatoes I had missed when i harvested them last year had planted themselves. Considering they were an unplanned crop and you aren’t actually supposed to plant spuds in the same place two years running I didn’t get too bad a haul.

So now that the walk is over and done with I can get back on with tending old McHughes farm. I spent a very enjoyable afternoon over the weekend hacking away at the undergrowth with my brand new petrol strimmer (ooo shiny!). And then I spent a slightly less enjoyable couple of hours wrestling with bindweed and nettles in my shrubberies. Things now look a fair bit better than they did.

Not that they will ever look actually good I hasten to add. We have a large garden, but it’s an awkward one. I carved it out over the space of four or five years from a bramble clogged hillside using only a petrol strimmer, a spade, a ton of cheap agricultural grade wood, and a complete lack of planning or forethought. It will never look anything other than “rustic”. And that’s on a good day.

Still, I’m rather proud of it. I can look at it and hand on heart say “I built that”.

But the most exciting thing going on in the garden is that I’m currently bidding for this on ebay:

To the ill informed this may look like a old bath, but you and I know better. It is a duckpond!

Yes, I’m getting Ducks! And it’s all thanks to the wonderful John Grey who is exceptionally generously incubating me some of his Indian runner duck eggs. Soon I will have three of these little beauties joining the chickens in destroying the garden

I am exceptionally excited.

Quack quack.

An English country garden

Jul 8th, 2007
by Dan.
8 comments

Last month was the third wettest June in the UK since records began, beaten only by 1912 and 1982. What’s more the BBC claims July is going to be pretty rainy too; it certainly has been so far.

All this has meant I haven’t got out in the garden very often recently. There have been some developments though, so brace yourself for another horticultural update. Stop moaning, you know you love it.

The Back Garden

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I had a couple of weeks off work at the end of last month and so took the opportunity to get down to some heavy labor in the back garden. For the past year or so I have been constructing a series of raised beds and paths in order to start growing vegetables next spring. The progress has been slow, partly because of restrictions of time and money, but mainly because I’m lazy. However, bit-by-bit the project has slowly come together and June saw the culmination of the last stage – the laying of gravel on the paths.

As you may know I live on at the end of an extremely narrow little lane, and I have been quite worried about how I was going to get the gravel delivered. Most suppliers use big lorries with huge lifting arms on the back to transfer the 1 ton bags from the truck to the ground. There is no way one of those monsters could fit down our drive.

Still, nothing ventured nothing gained. I wasn’t sure how much gravel I would actually need, and so I carefully measured up the area I needed to cover. I then consulted a number of online guides which each made recommendations that ranged between four and eight tons. Thinking six tons was a happy medium Kerry and I headed for a local builders merchants to see what they could do.

After discussion with the rather curt man behind the sales desk we were pleased to find out that they did have some smaller tipper trucks that would be able to fit down our drive. These only held 3.5 tons unfortunately, but that wasn’t really a problem. I could always go back and order some more.

So bright and early the next morning three and a half tons of gravel was dumped in our parking space and I began the laborious task of lugging it up the hill in buckets. As the day wore on I started to experience a mixture of emotions. Pleasure that the job was progressing much quicker than I had anticipated, and growing alarm that the huge pile of gravel didn’t appear to be going down at all.

I now have one and a half tons of excess sandstone gravel sitting on my drive and nowhere to put it.

What is the protocol for getting rid of left over gravel? Do you shovel it into black bags and hope the bin men don’t notice how heavy they are? Post it through the neighbor’s letterboxes? Give it away as prizes on your blog? I just don’t know.

The Front Garden

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Because of the rain I haven’t been out in the front garden as much as I should have, and as a result the slugs and snails have pretty much taken over. They have turned many of the sunflower leaves into skeletons, had a good go at the lettuces, and taken big whopping chunks out of my radishes.

Still, it’s not all doom and gloom. The tomatoes and the potatoes seem to be doing ok, and the first strawberries are starting to ripen. I have yet to sample one but Amy tells me they are “yummy”. The runner beans have suffered their fair share of slug attacks too, but appear to be pulling through. And the apples up the back are beginning to look rather juicy.

This year has been a trial run really, my true vegetable adventures will start next year when my raised beds swing into action. But it’s been fun so far and I’ve managed to eat a few things from the garden, which is always nice.

I wonder if gravel would be edible if you boiled it long enough?

Other People’s Gardens

Tatoes.JPG

When I first wrote about planting our potatoes in old car tyres Kerry’s friend Katherine left a comment saying she was going to have ago at doing the same thing. A few weeks ago she sent us a picture of her efforts. Judging by the size of the plants I’m assuming it was taken earlier on in the year. If they are anything like ours they will have had a tremendous growth spurt over the last couple of months, and have now probably taken over her entire house.

Elsewhere on the web, Lee from Urban Cultivation and Quit Your Day Job has recently made a pasta sauce from the produce he has grown in his garden. All he is missing is a few chives.

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