Digging and yet more digging

Tuesday was fine and dry, so the work started on the patio 

  

 Compostman taking up turf.

Getting rid of the old patio and finding the not very good foundations - we now know why the old patio went so horribly wonky and sunk!

 The new area of patio. We are reusing all the slabs

Compostman was busy with the JCB and it came in very handy today :)

 Cassi Cat is not impressed by all this

Lovely new terracotta floor tiles - easy to clean up the mud :)

 

In between making hot drinks, answering questions, doing some writing work and my normal chores I also managed to make some Damson Jelly and Cordial

Another busy day here :)
And more of the same tomorrow

Progress in the garden :)

 I am really excited at the moment as finally, finally we see some progress in the garden redesign :)

 
Compostman has got the JCB going again (he is SUCH a star) and has been busy.

This is a bindweed and geum infested bed which has been dug out with very little effort on our part, because we used the JCB instead of a spade. I sort of think I ought to feel bad about using fossil fuels to dig this, when I should be using my own muscle power and a spade and wheelbarrow - but my aching back is telling me to shut up, so I will.

One thing all this outdoor stuff has shown me is that I need to get a pair of decent wellingtons. It rained a lot  when we were doing this work and I waded through some water and found my wellies leak. I hate wet feet! I am also suffering a lot from cold feet and my broken foot hurts more if it gets cold and wet, so I am thinking of getting a pair of Muck boots, ideal for cold feet sufferers like me. The one that appeals is the Arctic Sport, which should really help to keep my feet warm and dry.

Any one else got a pair of these? What are they like?

I salvaged lots of bulbs and plants during the digging out of this bed and I have put them in pots and will see if any bindweed was transplanted with them. If none comes up then next year they can be moved into the new beds, which we will be creating in the next few weeks. I also have a lot of plants which I have been given over the last few months as well as bulbs and have been taking a lot of cuttings, so the polytunnel is pretty full at the moment.

This is all such fun! Its like the build up day at Hampton Court Flower Show, here at the moment!

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This is a bed full of mint which is absolutely covered in bees, flies, butterflies, hornets and wasps all buzzing around it. Delightful to watch :)

Which reminds me of  another thing I spotted when looking at the  Internet Gardener website. A lovely and unusual  hexagonal interlocking terracotta herb planter  I love the shape and design of this and after our momentous experience this summer with the Tree Bumblebees in the bird nest box,  will be buying it to plant up on the NEW PATIO ( yes, really!) which will be dug and done in the next few weeks :) You can see what it looks like if you go to my Pinterest "Dream Gardens " board.

In a few more weeks I will have the patio I have longed for, for so many years :)  And I can put Olive trees in terracotta pots on it and have some nice garden furniture to sit on. And admire the view.

 But first we have to build it :) Work starts this week :)

Finally! The ground is dry enough to drive the JCB over it withour sinking in!

Let the digging begin :-)

More garden work.

More work in the garden - this time Compostman used the JCB to grub out 3 large tree stumps which have been getting in the way of scything the long grass and wildflower area by the apple trees.

This area by the garage used to be a lovely flower bed many years ago but has become infested with bindweed. As we have a greenhouse waiting to be erected there ( waiting since 2004!) we have decided to do away with the flower bed and have the greenhouse there instead. It is nice and handy for power, water etc .

I am going to dig up as many of the mature plants as I can, pick out the bindweed roots and put the plant in a large pot and see what happens. When we have decided what is going where I will plant them out but for now they can over winter in the polytunnel in pots. We have saved lots of bulbs as well.

I have also been washing pots and trays and generally having a bit of a tidy up. The major tidy up of the composting area has yet to start, though...

As you may have gathered from my recent posts, we are having a major re think of our garden and how it works. Many areas are overgrown, or infested with bindweed, other areas have over mature shrubs which need major pruning - so we are going to have a bit of a redesign to make it more easy to manage.

Hopefully it will look more beautiful, after!

Fun and games with a JCB

I don't know if any of you remember, but back in December last year we bought a rather old and very ropey JCB

Compostman has spent a lot of time making it work properly and we have been itching to get using it for all sorts of jobs in the wood and garden, but the ground has been just too wet to use it ( unless we were prepared to totally wreck the garden to and from the places we wanted to dig up). Now I do not mind huge ruts in the wood but  I *do* object a bit to them over the garden grass!

 Finally, the ground dried out enough to drive over so we got JCB - ing

Digging out a load of tree stumps and stuff

 

Knocking over an old tree stump which was " in the way" on the lawn

And lo! The tree is taken away!

Only problem is - the hens view the JCB as a glorified garden fork and insist on throwing themselves into any hole being dug and trying to get themselves killed at every chance. Seriously. We have to shut them away, now as they bring everything to a halt, otherwise!

As do the lunatic cats!

I cannot emphasise enough how much hard work the JCB will save us. How much potential backache avoided, time saved to do other stuff...really, unless you have tried to remove huge tree stumps by hand, you have no idea...

And it is SO much fun! ( am ashamed to admit I am obviously *still* a "petrol head"* at heart...am a sucker for a lot of horsepower and a lot of torque......despite my green credentials...!)
















*Yes yes, I know the JCB runs on diesel! Please do not nit pick...

Thunderbolts and lightning, very very ...not frightening but very wet!

We had a HUGE thunderstorm earlier this morning here, with torrential rain. I realised something was up when at 9.30 am it got darker and darker and I had to turn on the electric overhead light to see.

The came the thunder - huge, rolling, blasts of thunder. Then came some lightning and THEN came the rain. Lots of rain. Torrents of rain. Buckets full of the wet stuff.

After watching the spectacle for a bit from the safety of the house, we realised that the front drive was rapidly flooding. It is not meant to do that. There is a drainage channel up the verge on the road side which takes away any water shed by the road in extreme rainfall. But it was obviously blocked up. This happens over the course of time as cars and lorries drive over the verge and fill in the channel with mud.

So Compostman wet suited up and went out to clear the ditch, and I did likewise and went to check on other bits around the house and garage. 

I found that, oh dear, the polytunnel was flooded  :-(  with a small stream flowing through the door and out the back. So I got some bags of growing medium form the store pile around the corner at the back of the garage and carried them one by oneto use as sandbags in front of the polytunnel door. This diverted the flow of water.

  
Then Compostman came along and got busy with a spade digging an emergency drainage channels, to take away the surplus water into the drainage ditch at the bottom of the hedge

This is the polytunnel after the worst of the water had subsided. Good job I grow in large pots in the polytunnel - if I grew in the ground it would have all washed away, such was the flowthrough of water!

 All of the garden was absolutely sodden, like this.

  
Cassi Cat, as always, came out to supervise us while we dug and heaved stuff about. She does not seem to mind getting wet at all. Must be the Burmese blood!

All the water has all sunk away into the ground, now and the sun is shining. Strange weather or what?

Looking at JCB's...!

we have been looking, recently, at JCB's ..it is my idea as we have various serious land work which needs doing - involvomg lots of digging out and earth moving - I worked out that the work we needed doing would cost us as much with a contractor as buying a JCB, so I said " why don't we buy one and do it ourselves, but in our own time rather than clearing trees etc to the contractors timescale? ..." 

Famous last words...

so ...we have been looking at JCB's and, as they hold their value well  - hopefully we can sell it on when we have finished with it..well that is the plan, anyway.

So today we drove up to Birmingham to look at a very promising 3CX JCB in really good condition, for a very reasonable price.

Watch this space ...