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Suspended biology…
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Category Archives: Garden & future allotment
Potato experiment…
The potato experiment seems to have started well and I should be able to plant these out soon. I just cut off pieces from potatoes which just included mostly skin and the shoots and they seem to be growing well.
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The pit of fire…!
Bit of a spur of the moment thing but hey. The single patio paving slab turned into the perfect size for a fire pit.
And it works!
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Rocket Gardens comes through…!
The new Rocket Garden shipment arrived and has been distributed in the garden and allotment.
It’s been raining everyday for weeks and we’ve just had the wettest April for 100 years, so getting these things planted has been a mission. Even so, I got to the allotment in the evening and was out there still at 8.30pm.
There was red, white and savoy cabbages, beetroot, carrots, spinach, leeks, peas for the allotment and herbs (sage, thyme, chives and rosemary), lettuce and rocket for the garden.
Next job is to attack the rapidly expanding weed population and finish digging over the plot, ready for the next batch.
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Protected: Garden playing…
Tinks and apple tree…
I walked outside and was fairly surprised to see our cat Tinks right at the top of our apple tree.
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Upcycling: corks…
A great post from Light Green Life…
http://lightgreenlife.wordpress.com/2011/12/03/upcycling-saturday-corks
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Cat issues…
Right, we are declaring war on our cat’s stress levels! Tinks has recently been more stressed in general, starting with a local male cat coming into the area inside the house by the back door. I’ve seen it in there once, but this and all the other cats which come through the garden are obviously making her stressed. She has been spraying a bit in the house and not been herself.
We’ve also been doing some decoration recently and have got two new armchairs, so a few things have been changed. She just came back from the vet with a diagnosis of cystitis, so the vet gave her some pain relief and we are starting up again with the cat pheromones.
There are also a few other things we’ll be doing…
– To stop or hinder the movement of other cats, I will build a fence across gap between shed and fence at the bottom of the garden. Claire’s Dad will also build us a new side gate as a combined Christmas present, which will hopefully help at the other end of the garden.
– The treatments, new sleeping basket thing from vet, a new chip operated cat flap (£80!), which our neighbour has also gone for. This will stop the cat(s) coming in.
– Tinks also likes the fire and last winter was always lying in front of it stretched out, so hopefully the more frequent use of it will help.
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Patio grass…!
We’ve started another garden experiment with a different approach to the interaction between the lawn and the patio.
I’ve always thought the boundary between the grass and patio was too stark and I like the idea of the different materials blending together and growing organically to mesh.
Here are also some other examples from tinter net which i’ve just found…
So, we’ve been leaving the grass between the paving slabs and i’ve just been going over the patio with the lawn mower on the lowest setting when I do the rest of the grass. So far, I think it’s starting to look good and minimises the sterile feeling of the patio.
This is also a good approach as it saves all the annoying scraping out along the edges of the slabs. Lots of grass looks better than bits here and there!
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Protected: Busy weekend…
Marigold Jac…!
I’m loving our front garden at the moment! We’ve got a full bed of Marigolds on one side and some nice lavender on the other.
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New sand pit…
We had the bottom of one of the freight boxes which we’re using for the raised beds, but after trying to get the base off (unsuccessfully), I thought why not use it as the lid for a new sand pit? Claire then had two cracking ideas in a row. First, just use it not as the lid but as the pit itself, then why not fix the spare wheeled board to its base so we can move it around the garden.
Genius. So, the boys now have a new sand pit which is also raised off the ground at a good playing height for them.
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Easter egg hunt…!
We had a really fun Easter Egg hunt on Sunday. I setup 10 clues each leading onto the next one, and each with a chocolate for Jamie and Jac.
I alternated chocolate fingers and mini cream eggs and each clue was a little picture of the next thing where each chocolate was hidden. They both seemed to enjoy it and we even avoided a complete sugar meltdown during the day!
There’s also a random image in there of the tomato plants I ordered from the internet, which had been sitting in the depot for 3 days! I managed to save them all and they’re a mixture of red and black cherry tomatoes and San Marzano. We’ve got something like 48 plants now so that should be enough!
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Firewood action…!
Elcombe Firewood just delivered the first of 2 wood deliveries, each will be 3 M3, which in old money is roughly 1.5 tons. The problem with working in tons instead of a metric space measurement is that the weight is largely determined by the moisture content of the wood, rather than the actual wood itself, given that water is fairly heavy.
*above: all the free wood so far, cut, split and stacked.
So, we’re getting a total of 6 M3, which is roughly 3 tons. During the very cold spell in the winter this last year, we used more than 2 tons (4 M3), with another .05 tons (1 M3) either side, so this time, i’m getting in what should be the right amount, plus hopefully another 2 M3 made up of scavenged and free wood from various sources…
We’ve also been beavering away collecting loads of free wood from various places and creating spaces for all the new wood!
1) Alney Island tree area – contacts at work helped with collecting various felled trees which were being managed as part of the annual management of the area. Lots of ash branches.
2) My main contact has a tree surgeon friend who he does jobs for every now and again. He helped out with a boot full of various part-seasoned wood.
3) While we were at Crickley Hill, there were a series of trees being pruned and cut back. I asked the tree surgeon if I could have a boot of some of the smaller pieces and he agreed! A half boot full of good sized tree pieces.
4) A final load (which must be a total of 1 M3) from my ‘contact’s’ tree surgeon friend. This is made up of about 8 rounds of field maple, each about 40KG and 0.4 metres across!
So, maybe a total of 2 M3 of free wood and 6 M3 of bought hard wood.
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Wood delivery & stepping logs…!
So we’ve had half of the wood delivered and have already nearly got through splitting it and stacking it.
The van arrived and just tipped all the logs onto the pavement. My Mum was also up for birthday celebrations and helped shift logs, as well as mind the boys. It took about an hour to wheel barrow the logs into the back garden and we’ve just been splitting and stacking logs whenever we get a chance.
I also arranged most of the logs I got from my contact at work, around the base of the apple tree, to form a series of stepping logs. This also makes it easier for the boys to climb into the tree!
We’ve got the next delivery of the last 3 M3 of logs this Friday, which should last all winter and some of the next as well!
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