Nuss, Sids, Fa-Ball and Urms

I've nearly finished principal planting on the middle island out front.  There's a revision to make (some roses need moving) and I'll be doing that in the next few days.  I've also got to get in some currants.  Mostly though it's done.  The side bit I'll do in the next few weeks.

It's turning into a very busy Spring this year, but that work and expense will sort me out for years.

Ellie, my niece, loves birds.  Planes too, but mostly birds.  If it flies it becomes an instant object of fascination, though a bird on the ground is just as interesting to her.  So yesterday I put a bird feeding pole into the middle bit and in so doing gave Ellie the first serious responsibility she's had in her fourteen months of life: filling up the tubes.  She's also picked up a few new words.  We sat on the floor and did it together, grabbing handfuls of nuts (or nuss) from a bag and dropping them into a wire tube.  I screwed the lid back on and we went outside together to hang it from the hook.  We filled two plastic tubes with sids (seeds), hung fa-ball (fat balls) from hooks and put sute (a suet feast) into a cage and together we hung all of these on hooks.  She needed help getting the rings over the hooks, but her hand was on it so now she's got the gist of how it goes.  I also poured out a goodly number of urms (mealworms) onto a wire tray halfway up the pole.

She laughed and had a right old time.  We got as many sids on the carpet as we did in a tube!  Anything that involves using her hands, getting messy and getting outside will always meet with her approval.  So now she has a job: refilling the tubes whenever they empty.  She'll learn about duty in a way that's fun, which is a great start.  Meanwhile the pole is outside her window, so when she wakes up before her mum she can go to the window and watch birds instead of getting into cupboards and eating the sudocrem.

Now to see if we can encourage Bill to stay in at dawn and dusk...

Winter

It sleeted the other day in Teddington, which I'm taking as a sign that the Wintersmith has stepped up for his turn at the dance.  As there's no planting or plant-activity left to do in the garden, I thought it might be an idea to just take stock of where me and my garden are at this year and what's planned for the quiet season.

First, we have a new addition to the family.  Our Sam had a baby.  I've mentioned her before, her name is Ellie, she's turning 1 in December and she's already toddling at a run.  She's got a fair vocabulary up to now:

Miaow = Bill or any cat
Doos = Juice
Doyan = Diane
Durj = George
Door = Door
Edjig = Hedgehog
Mum = Mum
Nana = Nana
Chickenchickenchicken = Chicken.

I buried my Dad this Autumn, which was as hard as you might expect.  I might write more on that in the next few months, but I'm in a weird sixth stage of grief right now.  I've gone through the five as normal, but my mind still isn't at rest so I've been making a lot of jam and I've been poopsocking heavily on the xbox.  On the plus, I can now make lemon curd.  He liked lemon curd did our Cubby, he liked the Beatles too, so when I did a job up Hampstead the other week I swung by Abbey Road on the way home, spent some time sitting by the zebra crossing with my thoughts.

It seems I've been shortlisted for a job as a lab tech.  Won't find out until tomorrow.

The garden then.  The trees out front had a fungal thing but I've treated that organically by dousing the leaves with diluted milk and by adding calcium to the soil.  The new thornless brambles are making it easier to gather the fruit, and Ellie loves doing that.  She sits on my Mum's lap out on the ramp and picks the blackberries that grow along the handrails.  There'll be more planted on the other side too, but not just yet.  I want to get two more cherries in first.

The back garden is having its annual lawn die-off.  The back garden faces North so we can only keep a lawn for a Summer.  The fruit bed is doing well though.  The loganberry plant is halfway along the trellis now, chasing the last of the Sun.  The gooseberries are looking iffy, in that I can't quite tell if they're dead or just hibernating and I shan't know until Spring.

Out front the neighbours' fence is still a bit dodgy.  It was put up by cowboys and so in the first breath of wind it collapsed and damaged their car and my pear tree.  I've made some repairs to it (because it's cheaper than cleaning up after cowboys - the last time they came out to make repairs they dug a hole round the post, filled it with dry cement powder and buried it) but I'm still not happy, so when I get some dough I'll buy a couple 8' tree stakes and drive them 4' deep.  Against that fence I've got an elderberry and three kinds of raspberries.

I'm looking at ways to make my front garden more wildlife friendly.  The bark on the ground is attracting woodlice, I've got a log with holes drilled into it which attracts ladybirds in the warmer seasons.  Plenty of dead wood for beetles.  Once my dwarf orchard grows to size it'll start attracting bats, at which point I'll consider bat boxes in the eaves.

Now birds and hedgehogs...  My front garden has two plantable areas, which I term the Island and the Outside.  Here's a map, not to scale:

The North edge of the Island is already lined with rosemary and lavender.  I think I might continue those around the Western edge and then along the South edge.  I'll site a hedgehog box in the centre and fill out the middle of the Island with gooseberries and bush roses.  There's already jasmine and brambles growing against the railings, and together it should make for a dense enough hedge to support birds and hedgehogs.  

At the Northernmost end of the Outside, up against the wall I've got climbing roses, Etoile de Hollande, but as they grow the bottom will need cover to look nice.  I'm thinking Buxus sempervirens, maybe bush roses, maybe lavender.  This'll come out by a foot or so and again I can work in a hedgehog box.  I'll put blackcurrants in front of that.  Maybe I'll separate the blackcurrants from the rest of the bush with a little hidden chickenwire so that Ellie isn't grabbing rose prickles. 

I'll put a narrow path down the middle of the Western bit of the Outside, from the blackcurrants down to just East of the Westernmost cherry.  At the end of this path I'll put a wee storage thing in the shade of the front fence (where little else grows), while either side of that path I'll sow herbs and strawberries.  I'll also put in bee pots to encourage bees.  

Next year I'll fit windowboxes for basil and sage.  I'm gradually accumulating nice pots, some of which will house a mix of flowers and herbs, others will hold mint by itself because mint is the Britain of plants: it'll colonise the entire pot! 

This year we were sufficient in three things: rosemary, bay leaves, and blackberries.  Next year we ought to be sufficient in those plus sage, raspberries, verbena, loganberries, blueberries, gooseberries and hopefully thyme.  Thyme's tricky though in my garden.  Within the next three years we should become sufficient in those plus strawberries, basil, mint, blackcurrants, elderflower, elderberry, figs, and seasonal stonefruits (apples, pears, cherries).  

And that's been my year!

Training the Jasmine

The Jasmine (J. officinale) has gotten big, but it's been growing towards a point.  I want it to spread; so I've strung my remaining wire over the arbour, untangled the plant from itself, separated the larger vines and threaded them around the arbour framework with the support of the wire.

It looks overwired right now, but you look again in a year from now...

I've got some wire running to the frontpiece, which should promote curtaining (which is awesome!)

Cuteness happened.  Bloody annoying that he's dug up my garlic, but cute all the same.  

I borrowed a brazier.  Ten minutes later I was going "I HAVE GOT TO GET ME ONE OF THESE!"

And I've been getting equipped for college.  I'm weak on maths so I've been reading this a lot. 

Lastly then: I saw a caterpillar in the garden; big hairy bugger.  Caterpillars are unique to the butterfly or moth they become, but I've not found a match.  Any ideas?

Later.  Jx

Jo's Strimmer!

Because if I'm gonna be cracking puns anyway then they might as well be about the frontman of my favourite band.

So happy about this right now!  A) new toy, B) flat lawn, C) cut grass smell, D) NEW TOY!  

I found a ton of dessicated dog poo that had fallen below the horizon.  Now that the lawn is flat I should have no problems spotting it early.  

  Other things: the potatoes were overlapping the thyme and alliums, so I've put in some bamboo.  

I now have red strawberries!

The runner beans have gotten as tall as the bamboo.  

And tarred most of the roof of the shed.  The bit I've missed I'll get with a long-handled roller on the next dry day we get.  The stuff stinks and it goes on like Marmite, but that's bitumen for ya.  

And lastly I've given the lawn a good feed to help it recover from its first mowing.  

It looks so much neater for a good mowing, but more than that, doing something that's a visible change for the better has lifted me right out of the blues.  

Once more:  NEW TOY!!!

Good times.  

Borders and builds

Good news first: I got an interview to study Biology!

The back border is in place.

I've included a slab there so that Bill and George can still access the social hole without trampling the bed.  Hopefully they catch on.  On the right we have Heathers behind, Coleus in front:

And on the left we have another Heather/Coleus pairing, followed by Borage, Bergamot, Tarragon and two varieties of Rosemary.  I've left gaps of a foot each side of each fencepost; these gaps will be filled by Jasmines and later trellis.  

I've put a few planks on the shed walls and put nails in.  Saying I built racks is giving it a lot more than it is, but they do the job.  

I'm also halfway through building a long box with a lid, akin to a footlocker.  It'll sit along the back of the shed and house things like paints, fertilisers, my sledgehammer and other dangerous items; hence the timber being two inches thick.  It'll also double as a seat, though I'll be sure to mark it boldly with "NO DRINKS, NO LIQUIDS".  You could mix up half the shit in a gardener's shed and make dynamite, and I like having windows.  

It's purple for the pretty.  Meanwhile, the grass is getting unruly.  Dammit, I want a strimmer!

Boi-oi-oing!

Spring is springing!  My crops are well on the grow.

Spuds:

Strawbs: 

TINY BABY LEEKS; SQUEE!!!

Last year I planted a Jasmine at the foot of the arbour.  I read up on it before I planted it, so I knew it died back in the Winter, but I didn't realise just how much it dies back!  All the leaves fell off and the vines shrank and turned a very dark green.  I was convinced by March that it had died.  I thought "crap, I'm gonna have to dig this one out, amend the soil and go buy a new one".  Then just as I was contemplating doing the work we had the first hot sun of the year and the Jasmine burst into life, grew half a foot and sprouted a mass of leaves in less than a week!  Now it looks like this: 

I fully expect that Jasmine to be a further foot taller come the Autumn.  Also in Spring news, my lawn received its annual infestation of weeds.  This year however I used a weed knife and cleared half the lawn in a few hours.  I really must recommend a weed knife.  Compared with a hand fork it takes a third the time, a quarter the effort, and leaves the grass minimally damaged; whilst hand-forking is hard, long, sweaty labour that leaves your lawn looking like it lost a fight with a platoon of moles.  Seriously, get a weed knife.  Best tenner ever spent!

So yeah, all in all I'd say there's no overstating the boon that a little sunshine can bring to my garden.  And of course as soon as there's hot sun on the grass you'll catch Bill outside, shedding his Winter stoicism in favour of his Summer friskiness!  

Until next time xx

The State of the Garden Address

Here's where we are just now.  I've put in the sage bed, clockwise from back left: purple sage, common sage, tricolour sage, Icterina sage.  

My lemon thyme turned out to be common thyme.  I got it from amidst the lemon thyme and the label said 
"[£1.99]mon Thyme", so I assumed it to be like its neighbours.  Ah well.  I picked up a variegated lemon thyme today and put it in the centre of the thyme bed.  

That'll teach me to not buy a pig in a poke!  

I've planted up bed 3.  There's two frames of bamboo and wire in there.  The one nearest the trellis is growing runner beans (Wisley Magic) and the one nearest the lawn is growing sugar snap peas (Sugar Ann).  

And the lawn is thickening up a treat.  It'll need a mowing and a third seeding to make it ready for the Summer, but imperfect as it is it's still a joy to walk barefoot on after all those stones and nettles.

Approved by Bill!  

In other news: at the bar last night we had a gap between doors and the first DJ showing up, so I got up and DJed for half an hour.  When I DJ I tend to write my set down as I go along.  I got near the end, looked back over what I'd played and realised "shit, I've been watching too much of the news!"  Take a look and see if you can see what I mean:  

Jam - Eton Rifles, 
REM - End Of The World As We Know It, 
Cranberries - Zombie, 
Prodigy - Firestarter, 
Manics - If You Tolerate This, 
Clash - Rock The Casbah, 
Chumbawumba - Tubthumping, 
Alice Cooper - Poison, 
Skunk Anansie - I went to play Hedonism but the disc was bad, so I played Weak.

Dude!

And I reckon I'm starting college in October, if I can get this bloody paperwork squared away.  

Later :)

Unintended consequences

Our Diane's bedroom window is some five or six feet above the roof of the shed.  Bill now sees the window as a new door, sort of like an elevated catflap.

He jumped in there today and Diane freaked out, which left me doubled up laughing and prompted the following doctored lyrics:

He's climbing in windows,
snatching yo kibbles up,
trying to get treats,
so you'd better
hide your yarn,
hide your mice.
Hide your yarn,
hide your mice.

He's since tried to climb out of my window, which opens not onto a shed but a storey drop.  Daft animal.  Well, come the heat of Summer she'll have to choose between sleeping with the window shut and melting or sleeping with it open and suffering the occasional cat burglar.

If he comes in the window at Hallowe'en I shall have to start calling him LeChat de Valois.

Beds and sheds

I built the shed yesterday.  It took two of us all bloody day; mega thanks to Tauren who I now owe a pint.

I'm gonna offer a review of the shed: it's not a well-made thing at all.  One of the windows didn't fit the frame, such that I had to carve the frame to size with a wrecking knife.  It has too many bits and they don't fit together very well.  You need to buy a silicon sealant separately lest it leak, yet it doesn't say that anywhere until after you've bought it.  The roof felt supplied is too small to adequately cover the roof, so I'll need to buy a bucket of pitch to cover the roof.

I bought this from a major DIY chain, one of the big three.  I'll go down there tomorrow and ask them for a bucket of pitch and a tube of sealant; if I don't get them then I'll publish the name.

Pics:

Glad I'm not claustrophobic...

Now that the shed's no longer an immense strew of timber, I have the opportunity to get stuck into building the beds.  I've spent this morning dividing the pallets and stacking the wood ready for reassembly, though it'll be a couple days yet as I've just ran out of nails.  

In cuter news: 

Bill has investigated the roof of the shed, the climbability of the new trellis, and found them both to his liking.  

George and I like to sit together and watch Gardeners World, me for the tips and George for Monty Don's old retriever.  "George, you wanna watch the dog show?"  So today our Sam says to me "this isn't about George liking the dog at all, is it?  You're watching this because you like gardening!"  Well no shit, Sherlock.  

Mike has celebrated the new Spring with some new growth: 

It's my day off from caring today, so I shall be spending the evening in Skyrim.

Until next time xx

If you read nothing else today...

READ THIS!

It's about the terms of service you agree to when using services on the internet.  All the crap they hope you won't bother to read.  This site distils it down into the points you really need to know.

Meanwhile, it's Christmas Eve.  By tradition we have a big fry-up for breakfast, and the pets get any leftover sausage.  We don't make a habit of feeding them unhealthy food, but they get a little treat at Xmas.  Suffice it to say that Bill and George are strutting about just now like the cat that learned to operate dairy machinery.

I leave you with this gem from the internet:

I'm gonna go drink Shuck under the table.  Nollaig mhaith chugat, as my granny would say, and the best of the season to ya!

Rosie and Jim Go Outside

Finishing revisiting childhood in 3... 2... 1...

I'm back.

So we've got some new additions to the garden this morning.  Rosie and Jim are from Rubus 3 and they've taken up residence on the roof of the Strawbrary.

Bill is vaguely interested in the mysterious floating plant pot.  George is convinced that it's here to kill us all!  Meanwhile, the experiment's own page now comes up top on Google when you search for The Rubus Experiments, which is pretty awesome.