Biscuits and Bilberries

As planned, we spent the day with the smallest foster-child, to give Jenny and Philip a break while the girls were at school. I think it went well: he seems to have had a good time, and we managed to combine several useful activities with keeping him amused. We started by baking Shrewsbury Biscuits (a spiced currant biscuit), which he enjoyed cutting into cat-shapes (courtesy of a biscuit cutter we bought at Christmas). We had one each for lunch, but they're mainly for the weekend, when we've got a number of friends visiting.

We then dug up a potato plant (another Lady Christl), which was very exciting. For me, obviously, though I expect it's good fun if you're two, too. That was part of lunch, which was conducted as a picnic hiding inside an old oak tree up the lane, where Liz and her sister had a den about 15 years ago. Clambering into it was an adventure, only slightly distracted from by the Belted Galloway cattle (a great favourite) in the adjacent field.

On the way home, we even managed to pick a small tub of bilberries from the hedgerow. Who said a day spent looking after a two-year-old would be wasted?

Paint and Potatoes

Last time we had a bit of time at home (at the end of April), I painted half of the window frames—I've now finished them, so all of the windows installed last year have had a coat of paint this year. Some touching-up is required for the insides, but that's much less urgent, as it can happen in rainy weather, so long as it's still reasonably warm. While I painted the frames, Liz was busy cleaning the glass, and that looks immeasurably better. I'll have to go up a ladder to do the first-floor ones later.

I also mowed the lawn, for the first time since marking the pond: the lifted-turf 'firebreak' works well. We also brought up some more of the Lady Christl potatoes: we've had a couple of plants up as new potatoes now. In theory, we should have started with the Rocket, but a Lady Christl was looking sad, so it came up first. They are delicious, and cook really quickly.

Space for More Strawberries

On the hottest day of the year, what do we choose to do, but start clearing the space for the strawberry/rhubarb bed?

Needless to say, we had to take a lot of breaks, and we only did a comparatively short day of work—but it was quite productive. We removed the three bushes in the way, and two 60kg-odd stones that were hidden behind them, and started to level the area. The shrubs are ready to chip, and the stones have been moved out of the way (under an adjacent bush: might move them later, but they're out of the way). We also marked out the bed with the normal sticks and string, and as soon as we have time, we can start knocking in the posts, and building the raised bed. It'll be filled with what's left of our last topsoil delivery, combined with spoil from the pond and compost.

Fruit Trees Planted

We finally finished digging the hole for the apple tree today: I was nearly there last week, and once I'd regained some strength, I was able to drag out the large stone (which, it transpires, is a slab of reinforced concrete), and clear up. Plenty of compost and topsoil later, and the apple tree is planted.

Surprisingly, when we then dug the hole for the cherry, it was almost easy. No massive boulders or sheets of metal lurked below the surface, and the tree was quite quickly at home. You never can tell. While Liz dug the hole, I finished cutting turves to mark the edge of the pond, this time marking the edge of the contiguous bog garden. This has let me take up the sticks and string, so I can mow the lawn right up to the lifted turf, and the pond will remain clearly marked until we're ready to dig.

It's been extremely hot, so we had to take a couple of breaks to sit and cool down, but before we collapsed at the end of the day, we measured up the strawberry/rhubarb bed, which we'd like to make a start on this week. It has the potential to be quite large, depending on how many of the overgrown shrubs we take out—it'll probably be about 4.5m, and we'll remove an unhappy looking hebe, as well as a cotoneaster and a patch of deadnettles. The cotoneaster is, in principle, quite an attractive one, with variegated leaves. Unfortunately, like the (also pretty, and purple-tinted) hebe, it's leggy, dead in the centre, and doomed.

Our supply of half-pigs looks unable to supply us imminently, so we also spent some time looking at the alternatives, and working out what we'd require this time. We're tempted to try making our own sausages, and—ideally—our own black pudding, though this is logistically tricky. One requires fresh blood, really (although frozen is possible, if the abattoir or butcher will start the preparation of it), but the pig itself usually arrives two to three days after slaughter, by which point the blood would hardly be fresh. It can also be tricky for the abattoir to separate the blood from 'your' pig from that of all the other slaughtered animals, and seeing as we're particular about the origin of our meat, that undermines the point. Fortunately, we've found a smallholding that might be able to supply a half pig, and we're enquiring about whether they can meet our (ahem) particular demands. And, admittedly, spent some time browsing mincers/sausage machines.

Out-of-season Loft Insulating

I had some insulation left after packing out the utility room loft (after the frozen pipes at Christmas), so I've put it down in the loft above the main bedroom. It seems as good a place as any, seeing as the guest room and study are less heated, and the bathrooms' loft is pretty full of plumbing. That now means that loft has around 60cm of insulation, which seems plenty.

This was rather a hot day to be doing such things, but I had a couple of hours spare after an administrative day, and one in which we spent a couple of hours playing with the youngest foster-child. We're planning to spend the day looking after him on Wednesday, but wanted to have a preparatory visit (so he gets used to being just with us for less than a day). We're just at the start of a week off, so there was no mad urgency to get things done, which was rather nice!

Incubation

We might have discovered why a tray of petunia didn't come up.

© Ian 2011

I didn't expect Chess to get broody, but it appears he thought the seeds needed incubating.

Bottled

The elderflower cordial we started at the weekend is ready, so I've strained the fruit, squished the juice out, and bottled the cordial. As before, it's in pint milk bottles, about three-quarters full (which we find a convenient quantity), and is now in the freezer.

The recipe calls for two days of steeping, but longer does work well. However, you have to be scrupulous about sterility. Given that I also make wine, this is something I'm used to!

The wine will need until, roughly, the weekend, before it gets strained into a demi-john. I'll probably try to get the elderflower rosé and hedgerow port going at the same time; the airing cupboard will then be full of demi-johns! Which is, perhaps, as it should be.

Hellebores

We ordered them ages ago (last August), and they've just arrived: ten mixed hybridized hellebores. They're small ('jumbo plugs', which means a root ball about an inch across, and two tall), but that also means they were very good value, and I hope they'll grow on quickly over the summer. For now, I've just potted them on, into 9cm plastics. I love hellebores for giving us flowers at a dark patch, and I'm hoping to find some attractive variants in the mix. We'll see, this Christmas...

A Long Day Digging

Admittedly, I only spent a couple of hours digging, but it's the longest day of the year (the solstice was at about 1715). The hole for the apple tree is taking a long time to excavate, as there was—I discover—a large piece of iron sheet where I want the tree, as well as a big stone. The sheeting is out, but the big stone will have to wait. I'm worried that the same sort of problems will confront us when digging the pond, which may mean re-visiting the mini-digger idea. Which would, in principle, be fine—so long as the weather cooperated on the booked hire period!

Turf Cutting

A weekend of unexpectedly favourable weather has meant we've got on well with a number of things. Least exciting was a spring-clean and bike-maintenance session. Never mind; needs must.

More interestingly, we finished digging a hole for the plum tree to go in (no, it's not the 'right' time of year to plant it out), having removed two large trugs of stones, bricks, and a square foot of corrugated iron from the spot we wanted. Plenty of compost, topsoil, and feed added, and the plum tree looks much happier. Liz then started on a hole for the apple tree, with my help when needed; meanwhile, I cut the turves marking the edge of the planned pond. This means that the sticks-and-string markers can come out (removing a trip-hazard, and one that might be nibbled by passing deer), and I can mow right up to the edge. It also makes it easier to see, so we can consider the shape, and be sure we're happy. I'll take and post a photo of progress, to also show the shape of the pond. Actually digging the pond is going to be quite an effort, based upon the two—much smaller—holes we've attempted for the fruit trees. The apple tree's hole is hard work; there are several large stones in the way, and we're only about half-way there.

Taking advantage of the dry day on Saturday, we collected up several dozen elderflower heads, and proceeded to make this year's elderflower cordial, and I started a batch of elderflower wine. We're making the cordial a couple of weeks earlier than last year, as the flowers are further ahead; the wine's about three weeks earlier. However, there are still plenty of flowers; I plan to make a batch of elderflower rosé in a week or so (half elderflower, half elderberry (from frozen stock)).

Sunday afternoon has been spent weeding, sowing some more spring onions and radishes, and harvesting some produce! We've been eating salad leaves and spinach for about three weeks, now: the salad leaves in the small central bed have been doing really well, and the spinach has grown quickly. The first lot of radishes are now nearing the size of tennis balls, so we've taken up the last ones to finish this week. The kale was planted too densely (deliberately), so we're now eating every other plant, to leave them at the proper spacing as they grow. The Brussels Sprouts had a better germination/growing-on rate than we expected, so they were also too dense. We've taken up about two-thirds, and will eat the young leaves (taste sprouts-like, and kale-y). We also brought up about eight of the baby carrots (a mix of Parmex and Early Nantes); there are going to be some peas this week, too. I'm also expecting us to run out of last year's potatoes this week, so we can lift some of the first earlies (which still haven't flowered, though I'm sure they should have)—it's all starting to pay off!

Pondering

Although Sunday was rather wet, Friday (a day's leave) and Saturday were dry for reasonable stretches, so it's been a fairly effective weekend.

I started dismantling some more old pallets on Friday, to augment the compost bins with, while Liz weeded the onions. We didn't get all that far, unfortunately, before rain stopped play; we did, though, therefore sew the last curtain tie-backs for the kitchen. Saturday morning also started out wet, so we began the day by lifting the paperwhite narcissi that gave us some much-needed winter flowers. The flowers ended in January, but we gave the foliage as long as possible to die back, and fed the bulbs a few times (Chempak's low nitrogen #8, with NPK 12.5:25:25, to encourage root and flowers, but not foliage). The bulbs are now dry and dormant, so we've lifted them, cleaned them, and will put them somewhere cool and dark to wait out the summer. We started with 45, but there are several that have started to split, and have (currently joined) offspring forming, so hopefully next year the stock will be noticeably increased.

When the rain cleared, we got back outside, and continued where we'd left off. I finished assembling a third compost bay (a bit smaller than the first two, because of space constraint), and turned the contents of the existing bays (bay 2 into 3, then 1 into 2). The older heap (2) isn't doing as well—a bit dry, and not rotting very well, so I watered it after mixing it. Bay 1 was doing well: nice and hot, and rotting nicely, so hopefully it will go still better after aerating.

Liz's mammoth weeding session has left all the vegetable and fruit beds looking much better, although she's left with sore hands and back.

Sunday morning dawned clear, so we got straight outside to ponder our plans for the middle lawn. It's divided in two by the cover of the septic tank, which we have to build into our ruminations.

The Middle Lawn (from the north end).

It is, however, a very good size. We'd always wanted to keep the bigger, more level, more regular shaped part (the foreground above) for a 'games' lawn—somewhere large enough for badminton, short tennis, clock golf, boules, croquet, and the like. However, we've never checked whether it's actually the right size, rather than just looking about right. So, we dug out Liz's grandfather's length of rope, marked up for a badminton court, and set about laying it out. It's the circumference of the court, with marks for where the main lines go, so it makes it all rather easy. The lawn, it transpires, is approximately 7 feet short, but also about 7 feet wide; so the badminton court won't be quite regulation, but is eminently playable.

Yes, we checked it was playable. In wellies. And a breeze.

This, obviously, is excellent—the septic tank is immovable, and we don't want to reduce the beds. It won't be Olympic regulation size, but I'm not that fussed. We also checked croquet-suitability. It's a little small for serious use, but for a casual game, entirely satisfactory.

The culmination of this is that we can now go about laying the extra beds at the edges of this lawn, and remove the gorse/cotoneaster we don't want, knowing that the grass area is sufficient, and we don't need to revise our plan for which bit of lawn to leave large and quadrilateral.

We've also been intending to get our three pot-grown fruit trees (a plum, an apple, and a cherry) into the ground. They've not been really happy for the last 18 months, and we think they need to get out of their pots. Our master plan calls for a pond on the opposite side to the tank in the photo above—that's the foreground of the next photo. We've marked something tentative out with sticks'n'string (as normal), and we'll see how it feels. However, it's basically right, so I've lifted turves where the fruit trees will go, near the pond (yes, I know I'll need to clear leaves from the pond!). These appear like monumental mole hills in the photo—but as soon as it's dry for long enough, they'll be replaced with fruit trees.

Looking onto the Middle Lawn from the east corner.

Winged Weekend

Another busy weekend, for us, and for barn swallows who have been building a nest in our porch.

They're building their nest (out of mud pellets) on top of the keystone in the arch, on the 'in' side; it's nicely sheltered, but it does mean they get disturbed whenever we come or go. If we're doing anything for any length of time on the driveway, they perch on the telegraph wire opposite, and noisily complain.

Aside from the antics of these new tenants; we got an early start to the weekend, as we were telecommuting on Friday, so I got out to mow the lawn after work. First, admittedly, I had to mend the mower: the bolt that holds the blade was jammed stuck, and it took some work to get it to shift. By 'work', I mean destructive dismantling. New bolt installed, and mowing completed. It was swelteringly hot, though, so I was glad to finish. Liz started to clear weeds growing around the puschkinia and bluebells, which is another good thing to have done.

On Saturday, we had a busy day in the garden. The butterfly net (8mm square mesh) for the brassicas arrived a while ago, and so we put that over the rectangular vegetable bed. It went on really easily, after the shenanigans with the fleece covers, and it has reinforced edges which hooked over the existing nails neatly. We've stiched the ends together (non-permanently, so the same mesh can be reconfigured, wherever the brassicas are next year) with polypropylene cord. Earlier this week, we mended one of the split fruit cages with the same cord, with some success—they had been stiched with hemp twine, but that's rotting.

We also put some bird netting (inch mesh) over the peas, beans, and carrots. It's actually cat netting, rather than bird netting, for the carrots: the boys appear to have taken to sitting on the carrots. I wouldn't otherwise object (too much), but I don't want them bruising the foliage and attracting carrot root fly.

Belatedly, we realised we hadn't sown any butternut squash, so we planted a pair of seeds where we had put gourds, and covered them with bottle-cloches. The gourds joined another half-dozen from a windowsill in a large half-barrel, filled with compost and topsoil. They're a little crowded, I expect, but I only want a few fruits.

Sunday came, and we nipped out to the garden centre. The bitter winter saw off the clematis 'Pink Champagne' growing near the front door, and we also wanted a climber to go up trellis near the kitchen (disguising the old door). We found two new clematis to do this; an 'Angelique', and 'Marie Boisselot'. We also picked up a dozen petunias (pale yellow/cream), and planted these into two of the new hanging baskets. The other two hanging baskets received three verbena, three pelargoniums, and a small fuchsia or two; these are now near the door, and the petunia baskets are on the front of the house. The dahlias we got at the same time have graduated into bigger pots, too, to grow on until they're needed once pansies in the troughs have gone over.

We also re-planted the Christmas tree, into a larger bucket-pot, and sowed some more salad leaves. We've been eating salads with lunch for the last three days, as they're leafing nicely. The spinach is especially good.

Lastly, and least glamorously, I trimmed back the ivy where it was threatening to block the study window. Needs to be done a few times each year: I try to prevent it from adhering to the wooden window-frame. We also weeded the front garden, and reshuffled a couple of the hellebores under the acer, as there were a couple of gaps, and a bit of congestion. The front garden, with its two new clematis, four new hanging baskets, and weeded beds, is looking much better!