Category: Garden

We had new paving laid at the back and it seemed like quite a good idea at the time to have quite a light Indian stone. Turns out it properly shows up dirty dog footprints, dirty boot marks, everything really. We put some “Wet and Forget” on it last year and it took away all the green algae that grows on there but after a cold wet winter it definitely needed a jet wash, which we did the other day, and another dose of “Wet and Forget” that I’ll get around to soon.

Had my first real life Zelda BoTW or ToTK if you prefer, moment. In an otherwise barren and boggy wood I found a single flower. Kinda made me wanna grab it and see what happened next, but I didn’t, because I’m not yet quite that bonkers.

The front of our house where we park the cars has always been prone to a little dampness since it’s the lowest point of our little enclave of houses. This Winter has been spectacularly bad since it feels like it’s rained non stop. This has been our reality for a few weeks.

However, in the past few days the builders that are planning to build on the “swamp” that is behind the far trees in the above photo have found a blocked land drain. They unblocked the land drain and hooked it into their drainage system and for the first time in possibly two years we’re all seeing the water levels fall in the “swamp”. The ducks are moving out and my car parking spot has now dried up. My back garden no longer squelches underfoot and all seems good. Admittedly we’ve had a few days of dry-ish weather but I’m still quietly optimistic that removing several hundred thousands of litres from the field next to us will solve our problems. Fingers crossed.

As an aside – rumour has it that my elderly neighbour blocked the land drains deliberately a few years ago for some unknown reason. The same guy that promised he wouldn’t sell the land to the builders until after his death. He’s still alive but the builders moved in a year ago so hey-ho.

On the same day that I finished my plumbing [ see previous post ] the ground workers turned up to dig up the bamboo. This bamboo was given to us by our neighbour about 15 years ago. “That’ll make a great replacement for the spots where the hawthorn has died” we thought. Turns out it was a spectacularly bad idea to plant it in our fence line. Spreads like a bastard. Grew under the path and started coming up in the garden. When I built my front shed I had a 1.5 tonne mini excavator that I thought I’d use to dig up the bamboo. It didn’t even come close. Didn’t budge it at all.

The builders turned up with a massive piece of machinery. Lifted up my path and got started. It took us a good while to find my electricity/water/data cables but once we did the digger driver was a proper pro and dug around them perfectly.

We ended up with two huge holes where the bamboo used to be. The next day the ground workers got busy with the dumper truck and brought over load after load of soil and filled in the holes again. I’m now waiting for some replacement hawthorn bushes to get planted and some grass seed to go down and all will be right with the world and I can stop worrying about invasive bamboo.

This is my first attempt at stringing onions.  Em reckons it looks a bit rude but I have no idea what she means, looks nothing like a pair of breasts to me.

I’ve just been reading about alternative stringing methods so watch out for the second attempt…coming to a blog near you soon

I’ve just been out harvesting my onion crop.  Out of the 40 or 50 seeds I planted I only got a yield of 15 onions which was a little disappointing, but the onions I did get are fantastic.  The onion top-right in the picture is flipping enormous!!  To prevent such disappointments next year I have just ordered 300 sets from marshalls so next years onion haul will be needing a wide-angled lens.  Along with the onions I also ordered a pear tree, garlic, some Amelia strawberries [ well I had to really ] and various vegetable seeds.

A few weeks ago I transplanted a load of strawberry runners from my outdoor plants into used Chinese take-away tubs.  I’ve got about 25 new plants above but I think a few of them wont take.  Still, between the strawberry plants pictured above and the 12 Amelia variety I just bought I think the family Steele will be having a bumper harvest of strawberries next year.  Which is fortunate since Amelia is pretty much addicted to them.

The pepper seedlings which my Dad gave me in March have matured well but I think they would have benefited from being in bigger pots, having the greenhouse at a higher temperature and not being grown in my home made compost.  My home made compost was lacking a little and in future will be added to the raised beds along with my leaf mulch.  I’ll stick to shop bought compost for seedlings until I get better at home composting…or get a wormery thingy 🙂

The one and only beef tomato that made it from the donations off Joan next door is ripening well.  It will be a treasured part of a salad and the seeds will be saved for next years attempt when I’ll consider feeding the flipping things 🙁

So the conclusion to the 2008 growing season is definitely could do better.  Still, it’s been a pretty shitty year for growing stuff but I have high hopes for 2009 now that I have taken out a subscription to "Grow Your Own".

P.S. Pictures of my homegrown sweetcorn still to come.

In a true Alan Titchmarsh meets Sarah Beeny stylee I spent the weekend giving my greenhouse a bit of a revamp.  As can be seen from the "Before" picture the place was a bit of a health hazard with odd bits of paving making up the floor.  Some might argue, and I am of course referring to my darling wife here, that this is what a proper greenhouse should look like…but not I.

The newly revamped greenhouse has a light smattering of plum slate chippings at 70 quid a tonne [ robbing bastards ] with a lovely geometric pattern of paving stones forming a centrepiece.  This bijou little residence is now home to 70 germinating onion seeds, a bunch of pepper plants and some other stuff that I planted that I have since forgotten.  So that’ll be a nice surprise in a few months.