Trees, patios and garden seating ideas

The Giveaway is now closed and I will draw the names out of a (clean) hen feeder later today


After the excitement in the last couple of weeks of the patio build, it is so good to think that soon I can get started on the garden redesign. I am itching to get digging! For now though, I have been looking around on line for more ideas and have pinned more products and ideas onto my Pinterest "Dream Gardens" board (a good use of Pinterest I think).

So far, my pinboard  seems to be mainly garden benches, ponds, greenhouses, cold frames and not much else - I suspect my veg growing habit is having an impact on my Internet searches! Or I just like to sit down a lot when out in the garden? Anyway, a few days ago I spent some time pruning this weeping silver birch tree near the house.

It has become a good place us to sit and have a coffee and a bit of a rest during the day as it is shady and also surprisingly dry when it rains.

After I had a good look at how my pruning efforts came out  I began to think about getting or maybe even making a rustic "round the tree trunk " bench for it. It is a lovely shady spot to sit and will have a good view of the new patio (am still so excited!) and all the new herbaceous flower beds I will be planting up really soon.  It is also near to where the new garden pond is going to be dug ( more excitement!) which we hope will end up looking a bit like this picture on my Pinterest board, only more wild. You can see a few images of "round the trunk" benches on there as well.
  
As the patio work is nearly complete I have also turned my thoughts to what sort of seating we want for it. As I discussed in a post a few months ago, our existing table and chairs are well past their prime, they are more than 10 years old, have had a hard life and have been chewed by Hornets (yes, really) .

So, time for a change. This time I have been looking at slightly more naturalistic/rustic seating. As always we insist that anything made of wood which we buy must be FSC Certified (Forest Stewardship Council)  and ideally made from fallen rather than felled timber. I have not seen many suppliers who use fallen timber, so I was really pleased and surprised to find that The Garden Furniture Centre makes FSC Certified Rustic Garden Benches from fallen rather than felled timber, wherever they can. I was also impressed that they sell furniture made from recycled plastic.

I was particularly taken with this rustic bench and if you go to the website you can see a selection of different locations and surroundings where they have sited the bench for the photo shoot. Some of them could be in our garden or wood!

Image copyright The Garden Furniture Centre

You can also have carving on the bench seat back and I  love the idea of something carved as a memorial or to commemorate a special occasion. You may, if you watch it, have seen one of these on a recent ITV gardening makeover show.

I know I said I was going to go for metal garden furniture because of the Hornet damage, but I just love wood so much! I will have to think hard about this as it IS quite a lot of money but our Wedding Anniversary is on the horizon so perhaps a bench with some commemorative message would be nice. I would justify spending the money on something so very special to commemorate that :).

Obviously I have not yet bought anything from The Garden Furniture Centre so I do not know how good they would actually be,  but the website is impressive

As regards the patio, we have to clean up the slabs this weekend (using a pressure washer and brush) and then, on the first dry day next week the builders will return to finish off the pointing :) I love pressure washing things :) I find it very satisfying, in a probably strange way.

I can't wait :)




Disclaimer - I am writing a series of posts about my plans and hopes for our garden redesign - this post features a paid link to a company I would be happy to order from. As always, the words I write are my own and are my honest opinions.

Climbing out of the clothing rut and getting a new look.

I've been thinking about my "image" recently. Living where I do and doing what I do, I tend to live in jeans, t shirt, shirts, boots and fleeces. Normally I wear the same sort of thing day in, day out - I have a few plain, coloured t shirts and shirts in cotton, which I layer over jeans. If it is cold I put a cardi, sweater or fleece over the top. In summer I just wear the t shirts and trousers and leave off the top layers.

I have good versions - clean, tidy and no stains (!) and when they get tatty they get moved into "everyday garden wear" and finally "cleaning out the chickens" wear, until they end up as "rags/dusters/compost bin" fodder!

If I go out, I dress in slightly smarter trousers and tops but it is still just a variation on what I wear every day. I'm not very glamorous looking and I do sometimes feel I look a bit dull, certainly not the look I want to have, anyhow. I feel like I have got into a bit of a rut, clothes wise!

However, I have recently been invited to a number of events where it would be a good idea to wear some smarter clothes  :-) I am still talking about trousers and tops, but at the pretty end rather than everyday wear. I need them to be suitable for travelling in and attending meetings and talks, as well being able to work in them (lecturing and demonstrating rather than digging compost). Fortunately I haven't got rid of anything recently which I now regret!

I do care about how I look and want to dress well, even if I am not one for a lot of makeup or glamour or fuss and my taste tends towards the casual :-) So, I have decided to buy a few, choice "new to me"  items to build up a collection of clothes I can mix and match and layer, for different occasions. I also want to get some pattern in to my clothing as well, rather than just sticking to plain colours all the time.

I can't spend a lot of money, but I have been looking around at shops in Hereford and also on line.  I couldn't find much in most of the usual places I shop, both charity or High Street, until I looked in  New Look

New Look have some lovely clothes in stock at the moment (no, they are not just for the young and/or very skinny!)  and I particularly liked their new line of tribal tops - especially this Owl top which is only available on line.

I think with a smart pair of dark linen trousers (New Look sell those also) a scarf and maybe a single colour linen  long line jacket over the top (of which I have several, in different colours) these tops would look good on me and they are made of 100% cotton, which is helpful.

Maybe not for wearing to meetings, but I also saw some very fashionable ripped jeans in their on line store, which I loved the look of, but which I would need to lose a bit of weight to fit into I think. Oddly, I have a number of pairs of jeans just like them at home, so maybe I am not as frumpy as I thought and just need to give them a good wash, to be fashionable again?


Mine are patched  have patchwork embellishments, though :-)

 

I also loved this Boho chic crochet top and it was a very reasonable price, but it is made of acrylic yarn so I think I might just have a go at making one myself out of cotton yarn.









I did however, really like this cotton version and may well buy it, as well as the tops and linen trousers I mentioned :-)



It did not take me long to find a few new items at New Look. They will mix and match with the existing things I already have at home, to make several "new looks" for me. A couple are on line exclusives; one can be bought in store as well but I will order it on line if I am placing an order.

I might even show you some photos of me, when I get some new clothes :-) or maybe not :-)



N.B.
I tend to shop in New Look or M & S on the odd occasion I shop for new clothes in High Street shops, because Labour behind the Label rate them as some of the high street brands who are doing more to help workers than others. You can consult the latest Let’s Clean up Fashion report to see who is doing more and who is doing less on the high street.









Disclaimers

I do need some new clothes and I shop in New Look anyway, which is why I accepted a paid link in this post. As always all the words and ideas are all my own - but I did copy the images of the items I want to buy from the New Look website.

I am a supporter of Labour behind the Label,  and am always happy to mention the good work they do to improve conditions and empower workers in the global garment industry. 

Blinded by the light - on being woken up earlier than I would like, and how to stop it.

At the moment we are sleeping in a bedroom which has one large window, facing East.  I recently noticed that I am being woken up, earlier than I want, by the early morning sun streaming in and hitting me in the face. We have lined curtains, but obviously not lined with thick enough material to block out sunlight.
 

Thinking about "covers for windows" and how well they work has become a higher priority for me because the Pink Bedroom, which Compostman is currently refurbishing, has not one but two large windows, one facing North and the other facing, yes you guessed it, East. So when we move into this room (soon!) we will have the same issue with early morning sunlight in our faces and an additional window letting in light. We can't turn our bed around, so we don't look at a window, as the shape of the room precludes that.
 
We always planned to move into this room when it was completed (only waited 16 years!) As we are now fast approaching the "choosing paint and fabric" stage of the works I need to find a solution to the problem now.

What I have done in other upstairs rooms is use blinds; to me they seem to block light without shutting it out altogether. Thinking about it, we actually have blinds in all the upstairs bedrooms except ours and the Pink Bedroom. Compostgirl has blinds and curtains in her (South facing) room and all the South and West facing windows downstairs have blinds. It is only the sitting room and dining room which have curtains.

So, problem solved - I will be getting some blinds for our new bedroom  - so the question is, what sort and what size? We want to measure and fit them ourselves rather than have someone do it for us, so after a quick Google search for bedroom blinds, I had a look at  Web-Blinds and found lots of helpful advice.  I had no idea there were so many different sorts of blind!

The Web-Blinds site also has lots of useful information on how to measure for a blind and a wide selection of different patterns and colourways. I also found easy to understand fitting instructions for all the different types of blind :-) And if you would rather someone measured and fitted them for you there is a link to their sister company, Hillarys.

In the other rooms I have simple roller blinds but I think for our bedroom I would like Roman blinds - although I am very tempted to get some roller blinds made using one of my own images (they call it a Digital blind on the Web-Blinds website)

Maybe something like this, from when I went to Garden Organic last year?

The bee garden at Ryton.

or this?

Marigold Hen

I think Compostman would prefer this, though!

The JCB

Hmm. Maybe just a nice, lightly floral pattern, instead?






Disclaimer - I am looking around for ideas to decorate the newly refurbished Pink Bedroom (may need a new name as it may not be pink much longer)  This post features a paid link to a company I would be happy to order from, in the future. As always, the words I write are my own and are my honest opinions.

Outdoor lighting, keeping the bugs away and and more plans.

With the nicer weather we have had recently, I want to sit outside in the garden a bit more. One of the problems with having a lot of land to look after ( and not a lot of income to do it on!) is that we very rarely get the time to just sit and stare and enjoy the loveliness of it all

So often it is easy only to see the jobs piling up and not see the flowers blooming or hear the bird songs. I have written about this in the past on a number of occasions but, as we get older, the jobs take longer! One thing both Compostman and I do try to do, is to stop for a tea or coffee break together, mid morning and mid afternoon. If the weather is good we try to sit down in the garden or on the bench at the edge of the wood. As the year progresses we all often like to sit outside in the evening, as well. We try then to simply enjoy the moment and NOT focus on all the jobs!

Our old garden furniture is getting very tatty and chewed up by Hornets (yes, really!) It would be nice to have somewhere comfortable to sit, out in the sunshine.. It would be so nice to have a decent set of garden furniture to use outside, maybe so we could even eat al fresco, once in a while ( if the weather gods co operate in 2013, that is!) Maybe not made of wood this time, though. As you know from my post last week I am also considering resin wicker furniture, as it will last a long time and I can clean the chicken poo off it.

One of the things I have talked about recently is that this year we will finally sort out the patio. I have a mental image of how it could be, and the thought of a new patio is spurring me on, in my on going search for possible new garden furniture (I am still looking and adding stuff to my Pinterest board!) I have grown some scented patio plants especially to go out around the new seating area (when it is eventually completed.) I lived in hope that I might get a couple of patio Olive trees for my birthday, even (I didn't)

Apart from furniture though,  we also need to replace various outdoor lighting around the garden. We use lots of solar lights around the garden and wood to mark paths and edges, but the wet weather of 2012 seems to have caused them all to die.  We kept a few useful bits (the spikes, especially, looked useful) and the rest has gone to the Household Recycling Site to have their components recycled according to WEEE regulations.

So I need some more solar lights and I also need some more Citronella candles to keep away the bugs - I react very badly indeed if I am bitten and I don't want my enjoyment spoiled by a Blandford Fly or Mosquito bite. I found some nice, large candles on the John Lewis website (a business I have used before, along with Waitrose) and I also spotted some  very pretty multicoloured solar fairy lights, suitable for outdoors and ideal for draping around a wooden gazebo structure, like this one at Garden Organic or even to decorate an outdoor tree for Christmas.

Now we "just" need to decide how how much bigger to make the patio, what alterations to make to the layout and then dig it all up and re-lay the patio slabs. We actually spent a fair bit of time today discussing what we would like to do/have done. We will use the JCB to do the digging, although I may find some one from outside to do the slab laying, thus protecting my bad back from more injury :-)

Then, if I ever get time to sit down, I can enjoy the view of the garden!

Disclaimer - I am writing a series of posts about my plans and hopes for the garden redesign - this post features a paid link to a company I already use. As always the words I write are my own and are my honest opinions.

My love of woven things.

I am still feeling groggy and full of face ache so, rather than work outside, I have been searching online for more inspiration for the new garden layout. I have been adding ideas to my Pinterest "Dream Gardens" board and watching the new ( to us) pair of Buzzards wheel and call over the fields outside the house.
 

Today I have mainly been looking online for wicker garden furniture. I love the texture of wicker and I have always been keen on weaving with rushes or reeds or flexible sticks. One of my earlier memories, aged about three, is of us stopping the car in a layby in Wales (so my brother could be car sick). I got out with my mother and we walked to a boggy area by a stream and picked green rushes.

I remember being fascinated when my mother showed me how the green rushes could be plaited, twisted and knotted together, without breaking apart. Later on, I learned how to plait my own long hair and I also learned how to plait rushes and later still to make make coiled, sewn baskets and mats out of the rush plaits. My mother taught me how to do this also, she could make hats out of plaited straw and I remember her making several summer hats for her, and for me.

I don't know if that is where my love of  wicker comes from, but I do like making baskets and twig stars  and willow structures and little corn and lavender favours and garden obelisks...

I also have lots of storage baskets and boxes made of various natural materials - willow, straw, raffia etc. I like the different textures on display.

 


I am looking for new garden furniture because ours is getting really rather old and tatty.  I am interested in new furniture which can live permanently on the newly redone patio (whenever that will be). I found some rather nice metal and some FSC wooden sets last week, this week I have been searching for wicker garden furniture.

  
I have always liked the look and idea of natural rattan wicker furniture  but in my younger days all the sets I saw, in other people's gardens, seemed to rapidly go brittle - I have painful memories of getting splinters and I suspect they were not really weather proof! My memories are also mainly of big, cane three piece suites and big flowery cushions in very bright colours. 

How things have changed! From my on-line searches I have found that the modern outdoor wicker/rattan sets are mainly made of woven resin on an aluminium frame, rather than rattan, so I guess no more splinters now, which is a relief. 

My search came up with the usual garden superstore sites but I also found a lot of interesting independent suppliers. I liked the garden furniture sets displayed on the Bents website - they are a  third generation family business based in Glazebury, Cheshire. I was very impressed with their Our green credentials pages as well, where Bents itemise the things they do.

 
Looking at the selection of wicker garden furniture on the Bents website there is a wide range of prices, styles, colours and materials to chose from - all of the furniture is made from resin weave so the splinter/rot problem has gone away :-)

I called the Bents customer helpline to ask about the resin material and if it could really live outside? The answer was, yes, resin rattan weave  furniture really can stay outside all the time, although the fabric cushions need to be brought in out of the rain. I was impressed with the customer service I received when I called Bents and I was even more impressed that you can also wash the furniture, which is handy to know with the Ginger Gang of incontinent chickens hanging around us all the time. 

I am a bit concerned that synthetic resin rattan is made from HDPE (so made from oil) but on the other hand it should last a very very long time and not have to be replaced as often as wood (especially if the Hornets are around!) and is recyclable at the end of its life. That is an aspect I will have to take into account before deciding what to finally buy. 

Of course what I could also do is make a living willow chair for the garden - something I have been thinking of doing for a long time now, ever since I made various willow wigwams and domes. But not really very portable and also not likely to survive on the patio! 

Anyone else have a patio set made from either resin or real wicker? Or a living willow chair?

Disclaimer - I am writing a series of posts about my plans and hopes for our garden redesign - this post features a paid link to a company I would be happy to order from, in the future. As always, the words I write are my own and are my honest opinions.

Ways of selling surplus stuff - clothes recycling for cash, musicMagpie, Ebay and other such sites?

As you may remember we are currently living in a bit of a rearranged house, due to refurbishing and redecorating the guest bedroom. This means that all the furniture from that (large!) room, apart from the king size bed base, mattress and the triple wardrobe,  have been moved out and re distributed elsewhere in the house.

Our bedroom has extra stuff piled in the corner, the blanket chest is in the sitting room, a chest of drawers is now in the bathroom and as for the boxes which lived under the bed and the books  - well there is a lot more stuff in the attic now!

 I have had to do a major clear out and a de clutter - if you remember that is how I found Compostman's Christening robe again? It came up beautifully clean, after a gentle wash and drying in sunshine :-) I must take a photo and show you all :-)

I have a lot of old towels and surplus bedding ready to go to either a charity shop or to an animal shelter. But I also have sorted out some good stuff in the way of books, DVDs, CDs, games, shoes, handbags etc. Compostgirl is also in the middle of a bit of a sort out  - now she is 12 there are books and DVDs which she no longer wants but which might make her some money.

So, I would like to make some money from all this "stuff" by recycling for cash,  but am not quite sure what is the best method. Ideally I would like the cash to save or put towards some new garden items (a Gabriel Ash cold frame springs to mind!)

Amazon

I do have a Trade in account which I use sometimes - this is easy to do if the stuff is in good condition but you do not get much money back and it stays in your Amazon account as a gift voucher, so can only be spent there.

I have signed up to an Amazon Sellers account as The Compost Bin, to list some of the books and DVDs but Amazon take quite a cut I think? And I also feel Amazon know enough about me, already, so I wanted to try somewhere else.

musicMagpie

Given my wish to try a non Amazon site I was pleased to be asked to try out musicMagpie as I didn't really know there were online sites like it (I am so behind the times!) where you can sell all sorts of items such as CDs, DVDs and games, mobile phones, laptops, consoles - they even offer clothes recycling for cash!

With the musicMagpie site (I am guessing there are other sites which are similar?) you enter the barcode of the CD, DVD or game, or enter the make and model of the electronics item or the brand and type of the clothing onto the site and they give you an instant price (alternatively, you can use your computer’s webcam or the musicMagpie iPhone or Android app to scan in your barcodes and start selling your items - but I am doing it from my desktop computer not my phone)

I have registered on the site, which was easy to use, and have been sent a welcome email - it was easy to register and when I forgot my password (oops) I was sent a link to re-do it straight away  - no hanging around. I have entered a couple of CD's and a DS game into the valuation box and been offered what seems a reasonable price. I have a lot of good quality, little worn clothes which I will now never again wear, as I don't have that lifestyle anymore, so I am interested in clothes recycling for cash as well as CD's and DVD's.

You need a minimum of 10 items (or 1 tech,or 3 games) to complete an order, so I will have to add a few more things I want to sell before I can send it off. I found it easy to save items I have added to my seller account, until I have enough to place an order.

One of the appeals to me of musicMagpie is sending items to them is FREE! I can use one of many Local Send Shops open weekends, evenings and 7 days a week - my nearest is the Spar shop in Ledbury which is convenient, but I could chose from any other shop on the list, anywhere which suited me. If I had lots of stuff or heavy electronic equipment I could send the items using a FREE courier service which would come to my house to collect.

music Magpie pay by either cheque, bank transfer, M and S e-vouchers (ever heard of those?) or you can donate the money to charity. Obviously I have not yet sent off items and been paid so I can't yet comment on how well that side of the site works, but so far I am impressed with my initial use of the site. I will keep you posted about the musicMagpie experience as it unfolds

Ebay

I have a seller account as The Compost Bin on Ebay but with the recent postage increase I gather it has become less economically viable to sell cheaper things and make much profit. The appeal of musicMagpie is that it has FREE postage and I don't have to even queue at the Post Office, as I can leave the parcel at the Spar shop, in Ledbury.

Second hand shops

One other alternative is "Stock Exchange" type shops where clothes, shoes, handbags etc can be sold and the shop takes a commission (usually 50%, sometimes less). We have a very up market "posh frock"one in Ledbury and a more general one in Newent - which sells good quality stuff, the shop is well run and always busy and they take children's clothes, toys, games and books as well as adult clothes, shoes, bags and family DVDs.  I have a box of good, little worn  items which will be going to this shop to be sold on and I get paid in cash for these if they sell or I can have them back after 8 weeks if they have not sold. I might then relist them on musicMagpie!

Car Boots sales

I know a lot of you sell at Car boots, but they really do not appeal to me at all and people do not seem to get decent prices for items? Maybe I am wrong, though - anyone any thoughts on this?

Any other ideas for selling items? Any of you do it differently or use another on line service?

Disclaimer - I had a post in mind about ways to go about selling my items for cash and then I was asked to review the musicMagpie site for a  fee - so I have added in my experiences to this post.  I have  signed up to the site and intend to sell items through it so as to provide a fair review - as always the words I write are my own and are my honest opinions.

Cold frames and earlier crops (and a major case of greenhouse envy!)

One of the things we love here are tomatoes - we love the taste of a freshly picked, perfectly ripe tomato and we use them a great deal in our cooking even when they are out of season by freezing or dehydrating them and making lots of tomato based chutney, sauces and soups.

I grow a LOT of tomato (and pepper and cucumber) plants in the polytunnel during the summer and I always grow lots of different varieties - I like the flavour and taste of many different ( mostly Heritage ) varieties - which are often no longer grown by commercial producers because they do not meet the "perfection" of shape and size required by supermarkets, or because their skins are thinner and would not handle being transported around, or any one of a number of " business" reasons. I don't care about  all that - my fruits are only transported a few feet from where they grow to where we eat them and they all taste mighty good!

  

We also use lots of fresh herbs and I don't want to buy or grow new plants every year (waste of money!) so I overwinter my herbs in pots and keep them going ready to start fresh growth in the new year. Same goes for salads and other green leafy veg like kales and sprouting broccoli - I always have plants growing under cover in the polytunnel and so can eat some fresh green food even in winter. Although some of the herbs plants die back, I still get some fresh shoots to use in the kitchen. 

I have just spent the last few days "pricking out" several hundred tomato seedlings from their cramped seed trays into individual 4 inch pots and I have the yellow fingers to prove it :-)  The plants now live either outside, in the polytunnel, or inside in the porch greenhouse. I should have my first tomato from them in early to mid June, if all goes well.
  
 But the polytunnel is unheated,  and it can still get very cold in there at night, too cold for green leaves to survive the winter and certainly too cold for tomato plants now. So how do I manage to put tomato plants out so early, and have fresh green leaves in winter?

The answer is, I use a cold frame, well several, inside the polytunnel, along with horticultural fleece if needed. I have three aluminuium and polycarbonate cold frames, with lids, which go into the polytunnel over winter and provide an added level of protection to my overwintering plants.

In this photo you can see some lemon balm, watercress and salad leaves whch have been happily growing all winter, inside the cold frame inside the polytunnel. I have been picking from them, cut and come again, since November.

 The advantages of a cold frame are that it provides shelter and a warmer microclimate for the plants inside, compared with being outside - like being in a glass house/green house, only cooler. It also provides an intermediate stage between sowing and growing under cover ( greenhouse or window sill) and finally planting out in the great outdoors (hardening off). Traditionally a cold frame was used in conjunction with a heated greenhouse, the cold frame getting its name from being outside and unheated hence "cold".  In fact if you visit Victorian gardens you will often see magnificent glass houses surrounded by cold frames, outside.

At the moment I have aluminium and polycarbonate cold frames, which were relatively cheap and are lightweight and portable (handy and really useful for me to move around inside the polytunnel) BUT don't, in my opinion, provide as much internal warmth as a traditional wooden framed, glass cold frame. In the past I have built cold frames from old windows and bricks which worked well, but as I am now re thinking the whole layout of our growing area I have also been looking at buying some wood and glass cold frames - which will be beautiful in their own right as well as functional and useful.

I am hoping to add a new greenhouse in addition to the polytunnel this year - I would love a Western Red Cedar one from Gabriel Ash  (if you follow me on Pinterest you will know I love their RHS range of glasshouses, and I have been drooling over the new greenhouse Monty Don has, ever since it was first shown on Gardeners World - some serious greenhouse envy going here!)

But sadly I don't think the funds are available for a Harlow Carr greenhouse like Monty's - especially as we already have an Aluminium/glass greenhouse in bits, just waiting to be re-errected!

But  we do have a south facing house wall and a patio so I have been thinking about a freestanding wood and glass cold frame there. Again, if you follow me on Pinterest you can see some of the ones I have been thinking about; you can also see them on the coldframes product page here. The one I am keen on is The Upright Coldframe and it is actually on offer at the moment at a substantial discount. I also like The Grand Coldframe as I could make that into a Hot Bed  - great to get tomatoes and pepper seeds growing! These cold frame look moveable, but also a lot sturdier and more solid than my aluminium and polycarbonate cold frames. I think they would provide a lot more in the way of shelter and heat, not to mention being less likely to get blown away in a gale.

I really like the Gabriel Ash website and the ethos of the Company and the fact that they are endorsed by the RHS; and have just requested a brochure be sent to me - apparently it should be posted out in a day or so (you can ask for one by email if you are really in a hurry!) so I can indulge in a bit more greenhouse envy :-)

Anyone else built or bought  a greenhouse or cold frames recently? Hopefully we will be able to get started on digging the area out where our new greenhouse is to be sited - when the ground dries out enough. And yes I know I have said that many times recently, but a lot of the groundwork is waiting on the soil to be a little less soggy, as we would like to be able to use the soil after the JCB has driven over it.

Anyway - back to the polytunnel for me as I have more pepper and tomato plants to prick out.  I also have lots of new soft fruit trees to tell you about - but that can wait until later :-)

Thank you for reading :-)

Disclaimer - I am writing a series of posts about my plans and hopes for the garden redesign - this post features a paid link to a company I would be happy to use. As always the words I write are my own and are my honest opinions.

Hornets and replacing the garden furniture

It was wet and dull here yesterday, so I spent a bit of time online getting ideas for our future garden layout. I have created a new Pinterest "Dream Gardens" board and have been pinning various products and ideas on to it. I have also been looking around at various on line suppliers of gardening products to get ideas and also some feel for the cost of things.

So far my pinboard  seems to be all garden benches, greenhouses, cold frames and not much else - I suspect the cold start to this growing season is having an impact on my Internet searches!

At the moment I am looking for Garden furniture, mainly because ours is getting really rather old and tatty and, if we ever get a Summer, I would like to sit outside and enjoy it now and them!

I last bought some FSC (Forest Stewardship Council  - all our bought wood must be FSC unless we have seen it grow and felled and made!) chairs and a table in the year Compostgirl was born and she is fast approaching teenage hood this year ( eek! where does the time go?) And it had lasted well until a couple of years ago. It came from our local Co- Op,  I cleaned it and now and then it got a fresh coat of wood treatment BUT unfortunately it has been severely damaged in the last couple of years from a most unusual  source.

Hornets! (Vespa crabro)

They are welcome here,  they are a lot less aggressive than their cousin the Wasp (nasty things, I do not like them at all) Hornets eat all sorts of insect pests and, as long as you stay away from a Hornet nest , they really will not hurt you unless you squash them.  BUT they make their nests out of paper made from chewed up wood - and they LOVE to scrape/rasp/chew the wood from our garden table and chairs! More than anything else! I mean, we have a thousand trees for them to choose but oh, no they have to eat my tables and chairs! And they have BIG jaws and make BIG nests (which actually are very beautiful)

All those white marks? Hornet jaws did that. I know it seems incredible but honestly we have watched them do it, time and time again and would YOU try telling a Hornet to "shove off my table"? No, me neither. So, the table and chairs are going to have to be replaced sooner rather than later.

I have been looking around for ideas on the web and also in local Garden centres.  As I said, if it is wood it has to be FSC wood, but after our experiences with the Hornets I am going to go for metal this time! See if you can eat metal, you Hornets. Chew on that!

There are possibilities both in B & Q and Homebase but from my on line searches I have also found a number of new to me suppliers to be a candidate for my money. Hayes Garden World in particular stood out, they are a family owned business that has been in existence, in one form or another, since the early 19th century and are based in Ambleside, Cumbria. I particularly liked their Environmental policy.

If you look at the outdoor furniture from Hayes Garden World , they have some lovely metal table and chair sets (I pinned one here a couple of weeks ago)   and also now a lot of  garden benches and, indeed, a number of the FSC benches on that page are on significant offer ( half price!) this week. I am very tempted to buy another bench as well as table and chairs! Except for the Hornet problem, of course.

 

Obviously I have not yet bought anything from them so I do not know how good they would actually be,  but the website looks good. I am seriously considering their products and will let you know what I do.

 I will try to add some more summery picnic images and summer flower garden ideas soon! We surely MUST have a Summer here, this year? Please?

Disclaimer: There is some paid for content in this post, but I had already visited Hayes Garden World website and was considering buying from them anyway. As always, the words and ideas are mine, all mine :-)

Reflections on a Pond

When we first moved in to Compost Mansions, 16 years ago, one of the things which made us fall in love with the place was the pond (the other was the wood!)

The view from the Study window as it used to be.


Having a pond or a pondlet ( that's my word for a very very small pond - think a sunken Belfast sink type size) in your garden creates so much scope for enjoyment - attracting wildlife, helping birds drink, bathe and collect mud for nests, the joy of watching the changing plant life as the year progresses -


We used to have so much wildlife here which was only in our garden due to having a body of water for it to hunt over, lay eggs in and live in. We had wild Ducks, Geese, Coots, Moorhens all nesting and feeding, Herons came regularly and we even saw a Kingfisher one summer. Swallows swooped low over the water on hot summer days, catching insects and scooping a drink.

Huge Dragonflies used to hover and zip over our heads, wanting to see who had entered their territory - did you know Dragonflies have their own territory, and hunt in the same places?

See how huge this one is? It came and sat on the kneeler when I was working in the garden.

Every spring we had hoards of Frogs and Toads all over the drive, all looking for a mate  - and making their desires heard VERY loudly - Frogs in particular are very vocal!

I once counted 128 Toads on the drive at the same time!

And of course after the Toads and Frogs had mated would come the tapioca-like blobs of Frog and ribbons of Toad spawn - in this picture we have carefully taken out a bucket of water from the pond so as to show Toadspawn ( and a Toad!) to children at a local school

Water adds a whole new dimension to a garden - here I was mesmerised by the sunset over the pond.

Our pond  is fed by natural drainage from water running off the surrounding fields and welling up from the ground as well as water falling from the sky.  We spent a lot of time, effort and money in the first year we lived here, making sure we could manage the water levels properly and could divert the inflow from over filling the pond by putting in a large bypass pipe and weir system. This made sure that even if it was very wet the pond would not overflow onto ours or our neighbours land.

However our pond was constructed as a large (20 x 40 metres) man made dug out depression in the clay soil with no pond liner and not even puddled or lined with bentonite - so in the very hot summer of 2003 it dried up completely and the bottom clay cracked open. Over the next few years, although it filled up with water in the winter and spring, as the summer progressed the water slowly drained away through the cracks in the bottom. Even in the very wet summer of 2012 it  filled up but rapidly drained away again into the soil. We could not do much about this - we can control too much water from going in but not stop it draining away through the soil. You can't repair cracks in the soil.

This meant there was no longer a reliable water level for Frog and Toad spawn to survive - often the water level would drop in Spring leaving the spawn to dry out and die on the newly exposed mud. Aquatic plants which need to be either in the water or in the mud could not cope with the changing water levels and slowly but surely our Pool began to wither and die.

For the last few years we have no longer seen or heard the Frogs courting, we have a few adult Toads around but they now spawn in the pool up the lane - the sight of a Dragonfly is something we now exclaim over with excitement because it is so unusual and the pond area itself is just a bramble filled weed infested hole in the ground for most of the year. Even the wild flowers which liked to grow beside a body of water have gone - smothered out by the brambles. In order to stop the soil from becoming waterlogged around the Pool area we actually now divert the inflow water down the drainage pipes most of the time.And we have to spend a lot of time and effort in clearing weeds and brambles.

So - we want to do something with the area to bring it back to life.We also would like to be able to look out on a pleasant view again

Part of the reason for buying the JCB was to re generate and bring back the pool meadow to how we remembered it at its best when it was teeming with wildlife and a beautiful place to sit and watch the world go by. 

So the plan is to dig out a smaller pond (10 x 15 meters),at the inflow end where the pond is now, and put in a pond liner , then allow any water left from the old pond into the new one. Putting in a liner will allow the water  to stay at a fairly constant level and we can hopefully soon welcome back all the Frogs, Toads, Dragonflies etc which used to call us home. We will also move as many of the surviving aquatic and pond loving plants as we can.

This pond will be fed by the same means as before (rainfall and a natural water feed)  and it is designed as a nature pond rather than a more formal, ornamental pond so we probably won't need a pond pump  or a pond filter but if we did need either I would not use mains electricity to power them but would use one of the many solar powered versions available. 

We can then start levelling the man made rise at the far end of where the Pond used to be - filling  in and lowering and levelling the ground to create a meadow area next to the new Pond, which we can re seed with native wildflowers to restore what was once there.

We wanted to get on with all this work last year - we bought the JCB and Compostman restored it with this in mind - but we all know what the weather was like in 2012! And it was just too wet to contemplate using the JCB in the area. 

But IF ( big if) we get some drier weather this year we maybe can get on with the earth moving and suchlike. And then we can welcome back the wildlife we have so missed in recent years.

 











If you are thinking about adding a pond (ornamental or more natural)  in your garden a very good guide can be found here from Bradshaws Direct, along with all manner of equipment available to do with ponds. You can also get lots of advice about wildlife pond making and planting from the Wildlife Trust  here , from Pond Conservation here,  from the RHS here and The RSPB here.

As part of my review of their site I was paid to add the link to Bradshaws Direct in this post, but had already come across them during my Internet trawling on pond related items. As always here in The Compost Bin my words and opinions are entirely my own :-)

Thinking about beds and talking compost

Compostman and I have recently been spending a lot of time discussing the alterations and garden redesigns, earth shifting and digging we want to do here. There are trees to fell, soil to move around with the JCB, a new pond to dig and new veg beds to make and a new building is also planned to do with our forestry works .

At the moment it is snowing here (horizontal snow, honestly!) and I can't do much outside so I have been sitting with a mug of tea and thinking and planning what I would like to happen. Planning for the possibility of a new polytunnel in the newly cleared area of land and also thinking about the idea of making some new raised beds in and around it.

Now this is officially a Good Idea in my book as the existing veg plot is getting infested with bindweed, so moving somewhere else in the garden sounds great to me - but it throws up a bit of a hitch - what to put inside the new raised beds. Our soil is solid clay and there is over 100 foot of it under us. Our existing veg patch is diggable only because it  has been improved by the application of copious barrow loads of home made compost every year. Everywhere else in the garden if you try digging with any tool  you rapidly end up with a claggy sticky mud lollipop of a tool, which can't actually be used unless you scrape it clean every few minutes. Well that's what it feels like, anyway.

If I had new raised beds of 2  x 3  x 0.3 m I would need 1800 l of growing medium/soil to fill each bed . The existing veg patch area which we have at the moment holds around 10 of these (!). A new Polytunnel would be a separate calculation, depending on the size we bought ( which is still under discussion) Typically I make around 5000  l of compost a year, which is a HUGE amount for a domestic household. And we use it all, in the veg patch and in the Polytunnel. On our soil, over the course of a year, all that compost simply vanishes.

So - if we are going to make some new beds elsewhere I think I will have to source a bit of compost  from outside to help get them going. Whatever I buy in must be peat free as we don't do peat here. So today I did a bit of looking around the Internet, checking the options and I thought maybe my musings would be helpful to people who don't have access to making lots of their own compost but want to improve their soil or make new raised beds.

So first thoughts were to buy lots of bags from my existing seed and potting media supplier and add it to the clag soil. Quite near to us at Withington is Fertile Fibre and I buy their coir based potting and seed compost in bags;  it is very good and I can get a few bags direct from their farm at a good price. Looking at their website it appears they do pallets of bagged compost. Being Soil Association certified Organic ( as opposed to organic) compost  it is a bit more expensive than the non certified peat free stuff you can get in garden centres. So, although I would love to use it, I don't think I could afford to buy the amount I would probably need, although I will investigate the price of a bulk load from them. The same would probably be true of buying peat free soil improver in 40 - 70 l bags from a garden store such as Homebase - not really economic (but think of the Nectar points!)  I would also have to move the bags in the wheelbarrow, from the drive, over to the new raised bed area.

Another possibility is to buy some soil conditioner from my local Council, who sell bulk deliveries of their "Greengrow" soil improver at very reasonable prices. This is made from composted green garden waste  from the household recycling centres in Worcestershire and Herefordshire, where householders have placed their garden waste into the dedicated green waste containers. I have had mixed experiences with using bags of Greengrow in the past, some very good but some bags had quite a lot of small fragments of plastic in them which had obviously got past the sieving and screening process. Also last time I asked, although they will deliver by lorry they would only dump it by the roadside in a heap. This is also a "soil improver" to be added into existing topsoil. I could improve the soil in a 50/50mix in one 2 x 3 m raised bed for about £50 using 20 bags (40 l) of Greengrow bought from Ledbury recycling centre. To be fair it would be a lot cheaper to buy it in bulk - you can collect it if you have a trailer, or pay to have it delivered, and pay only £2.50 per tonne plus VAT (which is more volume than in the bags) But again,  I would have to move the material by barrow from a pile at the roadside.

Another alternative is to bulk buy growing medium from an online supplier. I looked at several suppliers but the one which caught my eye and which I would order from was  Compost Direct.  I liked their website and the straightforward manner in which it was laid out; the useful calculator they provide and also the way they dealt with my telephone enquiry when I called them. Compost Direct are suppliers to the National Allotment Society and sell a variety of products, all delivered in bulk bags to your door.  Compost Direct stocks quality compost products from British manufacturers, which are organic, peat free (yay!) and from sustainable sources. Again, this is composted farm materials and composted green waste from Household Waste sites ( I know, because I asked them).   They also offer manure which is sourced from their farm and is again delivered in bulk bags,

Two bulk bags of their Veggie Gold Compost would fill one of my new raised beds with a quality blend of fine compost, well rotted manure and topsoil, ready for immediate use. Delivery is free on this size of bulk order. As the material is delivered in bags we could use the JCB to move the bag to the raised bed - avoiding lots of hard work!

I like the idea of getting at least one raised bed ready to use and maybe improving the others with my own compost and our own soil ( and a lot of hard work) so I may well be giving Compost Direct an order. That way, I could at least fill one new raised bed and get planting straight away.

Whatever we buy  I suspect the JCB will get a fair bit of use doing this :-) As will the wheelbarrows :-)

So, some ways to fill up those raised beds, ready for planting. Has anyone else bought from online growing media suppliers? Or can recommend any Horticultural suppliers?



I was paid to add the link to Compost Direct in this post, but had already come across them during my Internet trawling and was impressed, then, by their site and their products, so chose to add the link. 

As always here in The Compost Bin my words and opinions are entirely my own :-)

Searching for olive trees.

In hopeful anticipation that we might actually get some dry sunny weather this summer (!) I have started to think and plan out what might happen in our garden over the next year or so.

One of the things I am less happy with is that we have"inherited" the layout from the previous owners. I have altered things a lot over the years, moved shrubs here, cut down trees there, grassed over some beds, made new beds etc, but it is basically as they left it - still a very large lawn with some flower beds and lots of shrubs dotted around.

I have plans afoot  to change all that, however.

Compostgirl is nearly a teenager so the need for a huge expanse of grass to play on is lower priority now and also a lot of the existing flowerbeds have become so infested with bindweed that it is a struggle to keep them weeded. I have a limited time available to do "non food" gardening so when I do get out there I want to be enjoying my time planting and tending plants, not spending all of it just weeding or mowing!

So... some beds will have to go, especially the ones around the house, and some new ones will be made. Any bulbs and plants which are salvageable will be rescued and replanted in the wilder area of the garden and some more shrubs will go - many are past their prime and cannot be saved by even hard pruning. 

I want some screening between the patio and the road - it's a quiet lane but even so a bit more privacy would be nice. I want some new flower beds in the garden, with some structures for climbers (honeysuckles, roses, clematis)  to grow up - and we are going to re-arrange the (south facing) patio and change it around a bit to create a more attractive area to sit. So some more container plants will be added to the herbs, lavenders, scented geraniums etc which inhabit our patio in the summer months. I also want to create a scented border around the patio, filled with aromatic ( and useful) herbs.

And I definitely want an Olive tree and maybe another Bay tree.

We used to have a Bay Tree by the garage, but it died in one of the very harsh winters and I miss the dark glossy green leaves it displayed all year round.

I have always wanted an Olive tree ( and never had one before) You can now buy them in pots for the patio, so I am going to have one. Or maybe even two. To go on my new patio.When I get it.

So in the next few months I will be visiting lots of fabulous gardens to get some more ideas and last week  I spent a pleasant several hours short time on the computer looking for garden suppliers and nurseries (oh, such hardship,!) to see who sell hedging, shrubs, perennials, bulbs, climbers etc to re stock the new flower borders. (bearing in mind we are talking a large space, here!)

And I also looked around for suppliers of olive trees. I came across a lot of new and very interesting (to me) sites in my search ranging from cheap gardening supermarket chains to very expensive and exclusive providers of plants.

One of the more interesting sites I found was Athelas Plants  (fabulous name! Any LOTR buffs reading?)  who are based near Battle in E. Sussex. I first found them  last week when I googled "How to look after Olive trees"   to see if one would grow here and found their very informative Olive tree care notes.

This time around  I was also very interested in their selection of ornamental grasses - one of the areas of planting I really loved at the Yeo Valley Organic Garden was the beautiful area of ornamental grasses and I thought at the time it would be a lovely, relatively low maintenance planting (but there is no such thing, really!)  to have here at Compost Mansions. So I was interested to read about the selection they offer.

I am going to be visiting Sussex in the near future so I may well drop in to Athelas Plants and have a better look around - especially as their website says they have a lovely sounding  farm shop and cafe attached to the site! If I do, or I order from them I will post about my experiences.

So, I came away from my internet trawlings with some ideas and food for thought - I looked at lots of other websites as well as Athelas Plants in my search for plant ideas and suppliers  and I may well write a bit more about some of the others in the future.

But for now, I am still looking out, through the drizzle, on a very soggy garden.

Still, I can dream, can't I? 

.



As part of my review of their site I was paid to add the link to Athelas Plants in this post, but had already come across them during my Internet trawling for plants last week and was impressed, then,  by what I saw. 

As always here in The Compost Bin my words and opinions are entirely my own :-)