Garden 2013 no 3

My garden is the only cloud on my horizon, except the many rain clouds that constantly hang over it. We had a wee window of opportunity in February when the sun shone and the ground was dry. I did go out there a couple of times and began getting the garden ready for planting, but before I could actually plant any thing, the window closed. First we had snow, wind and ice and that gradually dissolved into steady rain. Now I find myself half way through March, nothing in the ground, the shallots and garlic should have gone in by now but I haven’t even done the prep digging. It has rained on and off for a couple of weeks, the ground has never dried out enough to get any thing done and I’m seriously behind with every thing. I’m not sure how long it will take me after eye surgery to be well enough to start gardening.
But…………..the need to be positive tells me maybe a year off growing will do the soil good and things like lettuce, radish, nasturtium, rocket, the what I call ‘pick and eat collection’ can go in any time and usually only take about 6 weeks before they are ready. 
I find myself looking for frogspawn every day and worrying that the ice has prevented the frogs from spawning, I hope not, I loved watching the little tadpoles last year. I’m spending most of May in France so I guess the modified plan must be to utilize containers as much as possible and plant things before I go that will be ready when I get back.
But, since I have nothing of interest to report on my garden, I thought I would share a link passed onto me by my sister.


My sister has alerted me to a fantastic ‘new’……………not exactly new but new to us, garden blog. As far as I can see this lady is doing every thing right. I especially love her post about composting. She composts just about every thing from dog poo (somehow I’ve never liked the idea of composting ‘poo’ but maybe I’m wrong). to egg shells and she does it every where from pits in the garden to little pots that she plants directly into. I also found the post on garlic interesting. I’ve book marked her site, joined the site and intend to visit regularly, recommend any one who is interested in gardening does the same.


http://averysmallfarm.wordpress.com/page/2/

Garden 2013 no 1

Garden 3013 no 1

It feels so good to write that…. GARDEN 2013 NO 1 

This will be brief, obviously there is not a lot to do or to see in a garden in January but the there are two things I find worth celebrating. The first is that I was well enough to brave the January cold for about an hour and go outside to the garden. The second is that once out there, I saw tiny signs of new growth. My fruit bushes are in bud. It’s early, and spring is still a long way off but it’s reassuring to see the bushes in bud ready for the spring. I did very little, I picked up some rubbish that had blown into the garden, clipped a few blackberry runners off before they embedded themselves into the ground, raked over the soil to level it off after the recent rain and wind, threw some spring bulbs into the ground and then threw handfuls of soil on top. (I’m not sure they will actually do any thing but I had forgotten about them and they spent the winter in a bucket in the shed). I’ve nothing to lose, the bulbs weren’t going to do any thing in the shed and even if they do nothing this year, they will be nicely buried into the ground by next year.

On the plus side, I’ve caught a lot of the water that’s been falling from the sky. My water butt is full to overflowing and the various buckets and bins around the garden are also rapidly filling. I’m thinking of using the wormery I bought a couple of years ago as a second water butt. I didn’t have much luck using it as a wormery because all the worms died.  I think it’s too cold here to keep worms outside and the bin has been cleaned and stored in the shed, it's ideal because it has a tap on the bottom.  I think I’m going to adapt it and use it as a second water butt, seems a shame to throw all this water away when it could be used to water the garden s next summer.

But for now, it was so nice to spend an hour outside.

Oct 2011, Garden no 15

GARDEN 2011 N0 15
Rain stopped play today

Rain stopped play today. It was windy when I went out, that would have been OK, but then it poured with rain, so here I am back indoors with out finishing off in the garden.
I opened up the shed, took every thing out and then the rain came down, I was soaked putting every thing away and once wet………….I thought I may as well take a couple more photos.
This is my new garden bench, it’s my old fish tank stand covered with a slab of reclaimed marble. What a lucky coincidence, my son-in-law had this slab of marble sitting in his shed, he doesn’t even know where it originally came from, and it’s a perfect fit. It’s a totally recycled/ reclaimed piece of garden furniture, its too heavy for any one to take away, it doesn’t need to be put away at the end of the day and it's multifunctional. I can sit here, watch the world go by and take a break, or I can use it as a work bench. In the winter when I’m not likely to be out enjoying the view, it can be used to stand pots on to keep them off the ground. As a bonus………….its a dam good looking  garden feature.
This is my new corner garden. Maybe you remember I heaped all the turf that was removed to create the vegetable patch into an unused corner of the garden and covered it with garden membrane and plastic for a few months. It didn’t take long for the grass to die off and the soil to settle. I dug it over, removed what was left of the grass roots and planted it up with new lavender and  heather. I added all the old lavender that was scattered around the garden in pots or odd corners. In the past I've lost lavender over the winter because its feet become too wet in the pots. This is a well drained site and I’m hoping the lavender  thrives here.
The new flower bed along the side is more established now, it should really come into its own next year. I have honeysuckle, jasmine, hydrangea, and a couple of other purple/ pink shrubs that I can’t remember the names of right now.
And it’s too wet to go out to the garden and check.
I wanted to do three things today, I wanted to prune back all the fruit canes, remove the grass and unwanted weeds from the ‘wild flower’ bed and bring in my geraniums to take cuttings and re-pot for over wintering indoors. I still have a good show of colour with the geraniums but if I leave them much longer I risk losing the whole lot to frost. Rain stopped play and I achieved none of that. The geraniums are still out there. They must be my priority now, they need to come indoors urgently.
The water in the pond is looking good, its clear, I can see the bottom and the duck weed is doing a good job of covering the surface. I'm quietly confident, as they say, of being able to put tadpoles back in again next year.
Lastly…………..can any one identify this for me please? I planted it from a packet of mixed herb seeds; it’s a good looking delicate, woody stemmed, aromatic plant. It stands about 8 inches tall and I recognise the smell, I just can’t quite identify exactly what it is.

Tags: garden, garden2011, plants, pond

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delete reply mitchylr wrote on Oct 17, '11 Excellent piece of recycling!! And it loooks good too!! I really like that corner garden :-))

delete reply bernardv wrote on Oct 17, '11 It looks lovely. I'm afraid I'm dreadful at gardening.

delete reply brendainmad wrote on Oct 17, '11 Have you tried looking online at a gardening site that has photos and descriptions of herbs?

delete reply kathyinozarks wrote on Oct 17, '11 Loved the garden tour--and I love that bench as well-yeh-love reuse for special items

delete reply greenwytch wrote on Oct 17, '11 LOVE LOVE LOVE the bench! and free is always a good thing, so well done! your new garden is looking very lovely. heather and lavender.....perfect! the border is looking great, everything looks quite healthy and happy. hopefully you will be able to tend to those geraniums. i just love them, too. the pond is looking really good and i sure do hope the frogs will come back and thrive for you. i honestly have no idea what that mystery plant is....it almost looks like a basil to me, but the leaves are quite different. pretty blossom....i will be curious to know if someone can identify it for you. happy Monday!

July 17 2011, Garden no 13

Update on the painting

By midday I’d managed a few hours sleep, the headache was under control, the sun was shining and I knew I couldn’t miss the opportunity to carry on with the painting. Outside painting can only be done when its not raining, not even a little bit damp and preferably when the sun is shining to speed up the drying process. We don’t get an awful lot of days like that in Scotland, so when perfect painting conditions occur, you have to go for it. My iron gate is a disaster, it needs doing again after yesterdays rain but I couldn’t face another day with the gloss paint, not after yesterday.

This cheeky chappie spent the afternoon stealing my red currants, I would rather have harvested them myself but I guess providing food for the birds is better than letting them go to waste.  No sign of the baby thrush today, I’m hoping that’s a good sign.
Some of the fences and wooden edging was streaky and needed touching up with blue timber paint, but that didn’t take long.

The bulk of my day has been spent with the white masonry paint. It doesn’t smell as horrible as gloss, and it doesn’t give me such a headache, but its equally messy and I find it quite hard to apply. BUT…..I’ve worked long and hard today and think I’ve actually finished with the white paint. I started re-painting all the walls, but then I realised how much paint it would use and how much time it would take and decided to just touch up the bits that had flaked or suffered frost damage. Most of my day has been spent on fiddly bits. The little white kerb stone on the edge of my garden is now white. I didn’t even know it was there until I had the hedge removed. While I was painting the fence I decided a white kerb stone would show off my new fence perfectly. The old tiles around the pond were broken and flaky. That happened the first winter, I learnt that interior tiles are not designed to withstand the Scottish winter with its frost, ice and storms and now the whole lot are covered in a couple of coats of external masonry paint. Hopefully that will survive the winter intact.
I built a small breeze block edge along the bed where all the fruit canes are, that had a couple of coats and looks much better for it. I’ve also made a little corner by the gate to keep the recycle bins tidy. They kept getting shoved around the garden and never seemed to land in the same place twice, they have a home all of their own now which I’m sure will keep the garden much tidier. When I first painted every thing white a couple of years ago, I never did get around to painting the inside of the steps, until today. That was quite hard work because my walls are textured and its really hard to get the paint into all the little pits and lumps. Once the first coat is on its not too bad but today, it was starting from scratch on the steps. It took forever. On to my next years corner flower bed. Actually, it’s a big pile of upside down turf, covered in black bags, that I’m hoping will rot down over the winter. We didn’t know what to do with the turf when we dug up part of the grass for the veg patch. So we piled it all up in the corner and hoped it would rot down over the winter. I built a little wall to keep all the earth in place and now that little wall……………is white. Something else I didn’t get around to doing last year was painting the original corner flower bed, but now it’s done.
It’s a good feeling to know I’ve cleared away the timber paint, cleared away the masonry paint and only have the gloss painting left to do.  Once that’s done I’ll have to go buy some more concrete floor paint to repaint concrete slabs. Hopefully all of this will be completely finished before school starts again.
I'm still covered in white paint, I look like a snowman,  I have bits of white paint flaking off me and drifting all over the room. I have white in my hair, white under my fingernails, white all over my clothes,  if I don't go get cleaned up every thing will be covered in white.

Tags: garden, garden2011, plants, pond

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edit delete reply forgetmenot525 wrote on Jul 19, '11 Thanks folks ....................I love sharing my little garden projects here, its nice to know some folk actually enjoy my garden posts.

edit delete reply forgetmenot525 wrote on Jul 19, '11 veroniquemariquita said I have a really ugly set of steps that is the outside entrance to my basement. Your nice fresh white paint with blue trim is giving me inspiration to spruce mine up a bit. don't you just hate 'ugly' in the garden, I do. I'm really pleased I finally got around to painting the steps, it will look even better when I find the red concrete paint to do the tops of the steps with, Last time I painted the steps I sourced the exterior concrete paint at a local store that has closed down now so I'm just hoping I can find some some where else. And yes.............it really is very nice to stand back and admire what's been achieved. :-) almost makes the backache and headache worth it

edit delete reply forgetmenot525 wrote on Jul 19, '11 mitchylr said It's all looking good. As the weather was pretty dull yesterday, I decided to make a start on my living room ohh when all this is done and the weather turns, I will carry on with my living room, its half stripped right now. Don't know about you but I never use gloss inside, for interior wood, radiators etc I use the silk finish wood paint, its water based, I couldn't stand that awful smell indoors, it would make me ill.

edit delete reply forgetmenot525 wrote on Jul 19, '11 esoterika713 said What kind of paint are you using? Is it oil? its the blue gloss paint for the exterior doors and iron gate that gives me the problem, yes that is oil bases and revolting, but nothing else will give that sort of protection, and with our climate, plus the salt air, we need the protection on exterior surfaces. ...........The other paints are OK, the white masonry paint is water based as is the blue timber paint.

delete reply veroniquemariquita wrote on Jul 19, '11 I have a really ugly set of steps that is the outside entrance to my basement. Your nice fresh white paint with blue trim is giving me inspiration to spruce mine up a bit.

delete reply veroniquemariquita wrote on Jul 19, '11 You have everything looking so neat and tidy now. Doesn't it give you a good feeling just to sit back and look at all you have accomplished!

delete reply forelithe wrote on Jul 19, '11 Good for you ! The textured walls go really quickly with one of those hugely fuzzy rollers, but they also use more paint. It's the edging and corner brush work that takes all the time

delete reply djdx wrote on Jul 18, '11 Looking spiffy!

delete reply mitchylr wrote on Jul 18, '11 You did get quite a lot done!! Well done. It's all looking good. As the weather was pretty dull yesterday, I decided to make a start on my living room. It's gonna take a . I spent several hours 'cutting in' along the edges of the black wooden beams in the ceiling. It's a really awkward fiddly job and I've got a crick in my neck now!!.

delete reply artprevails wrote on Jul 17, '11 It all looks beautiful!

delete reply artprevails wrote on Jul 17, '11 Wow! I am impressed! You got a LOT done but what a great feeling, eh?

delete reply esoterika713 wrote on Jul 17, '11, edited on Jul 17, '11 What kind of paint are you using? Is it oil? I volunteered to paint one of the buildings in our co-op yesterday. About four hours worth. I do the garden which counts as volunteer time so anything extra is good too. It looks like your hard work is paying off. Your garden looks amazing. I like the white. It is something I would never have thought of but it looks great. :)

edit delete reply forgetmenot525 wrote on Jul 17, '11 nessiek said Have you looked at your first photos to see how far you have come? :-) I do like to look back and compare. Thats part of the reason I keep this garden blog, all garden entries are numbered and tagged so If I want to I can bing them all up and go through them one at a time ( so could any one esle if the really wanted too) I wasn't quite so careful with the earlier ones but I'm used to doing it now .............best record keeping method ever I think.

delete reply nessiek wrote on Jul 17, '11 Fantastic! :o) Have you looked at your first photos to see how far you have come? Brilliant job!

delete reply greenwytch wrote on Jul 17, '11 great job, Loretta.....i loved reading about your garden adventures and ventures and the photos are fabulous. your creativity and enthusiasm are an inspiration. kudos to you, my dear!

delete reply brendainmad wrote on Jul 17, '11 I'd say you deserve a good rest, but I suppose you'll have to finish the panting first. Hope it all dries.

delete reply nemo4sun wrote on Jul 17, '11 lol you are so cute in your discrptions but a big KUDO on what you got done it all looks really good :)