Grass, what a mess it is in and how to fix it (maybe)

Today we had a few hours where water did not fall from the sky so I went around and had a good look at the damage and water logging in the garden and wood.

The land is sodden, far too wet to do anything on or with it and where ever anyone has walked over the  ground, footprint shaped holes rapidly fill with muddy water.

We have paving slabs to walk on alongside the poly tunnel to the hen runs, but areas of grass where we have had to walk even once are just liquid mud. One of the drawbacks of being on very heavy red clay!

There are areas in the garden where the grass looks suspiciously like it is dead - I suspect that some of the lawn, where the JCB has driven over and where the soil was still very compacted, will not recover from the damage.



and we have standing water on the grass, the soil, the flower beds are under water in places and there is even water standing on the surface of the raised beds - that is how waterlogged the soil is. The area around the old pool, where we are slowly filling in the large hole, is like something from a battlefield - churned up mud and subsoil with muddy pools of water.

I have been taking photos of the worst areas (I have odd hobbies!) with a view to re laying some of the paths around the garden and I have been thinking of replacing some of the damaged lawn areas. I was originally thinking about buying grass seed with a view to  re seeding, but I have also now been looking into buying turf, as the small areas we turfed last year seem to have withstood the rainfall rather better than other parts of the lawn.  I suspect that is because we dug over the soil underneath and so it is rather better aerated than the old area of lawn.

As I would have to dig and level the soil regardless of sowing seed or laying turf, I might go for the slightly easier option, especially as the cats and the chickens are less likely to destroy turf, rather than a nice seedbed! I can also  grow and then plant out wild flower plug plants through holes in the turf into the soil beneath, which is an easier way to get a wildflower filled lawn more quickly.

If I do decide to buy turf rather than seed I am thinking of using Turf Express as the supplier. They deliver all over the UK and offer a hard wearing grass mix at a good price, with a minimum order of only 10 m2 and with next day delivery at no extra charge. The small minimum order is attractive, as I don't want to re do the whole garden, just certain selected areas ( although re doing the whole lot would be lovely, it just is not going to happen!)

I found an interesting and helpful guide to laying turf on the  BBC Gardeners World. website.  Has anyone else re turfed large areas of lawn? Any comments or experiences to recount? I would be interested in your experiences, if so.

Interestingly we often go to Hereford via Stoke Edith, where the B road cuts across the flood plain of the River Frome and there are very flat fields where turf is grown - it is a fascinating process to watch how it is cut, harvested (rolled up just like strips of carpet!) and taken away.

xxx

Rugs, rags, recycling and a new floor.

This week has been a very busy one for us here  at Compost Mansions. We are having a lot of work done outside as we are having an expanded and redesigned patio being built. I have been redesigning the garden for a long time now and finally I have some new beds to plant up and a whole load of plants I have grown to put into them.

The new kitchen floor is finished and looks lovely, and now the evenings are drawing in I have returned to some crafting at last :)

One of the things I have been doing is play with a small peg loom - I have made a start on a rug made from (again) unwanted cotton tee shirts  and I have also resurrected the rag yarn crochet rug I was working on at the start of the year.

I actually unwound a lot of it as I didn't like the colour scheme and am crocheting it again.  The plan is that this will be a rug for the cats to sleep on in the kitchen as the new terracotta tiles are a bit cold for them, otherwise.

Rugs are also on my mind for elsewhere in the house. Now that our lovely new bedroom has a wooden floor, I want to get a couple of smaller rugs to go with the large woollen rug which sits at the foot of the bed. I want warm comfortable rugs to stand on with bare feet when I get out of bed. I also want them to be woven from either wool or some other natural yarn.

I had a look around on line for traditional rugs for the home and found a company called mail order rugs. I love the fact that on their website you can select rugs by colour, yarn, shape or style. I was particularly taken by the colours of some of the rugs and got some great ideas for making my own.

As far as the rugs are concerned, I want them to be made from natural materials, probably wool. I would ideally like them to be washable or at least damp spongable ( the cats are always bringing us "gifts" and also have muddy paws even as far as the bedroom!) and I would like them to come from a supplier who doesn't exploit rug makers in other parts of the world ( often underpaid children) so I was pleased to see that mail order rugs say on their website

All our rugs are responsibly sourced using suppliers who understand our opposition to exploiting children in the rug industry.

There is a really good Rug Buying Guide on their website as well which is full of interesting info.

A couple of the modern rug designs  in particular caught my eye as ideas for a large quilt I want to make to go on our bed. This will be in shades of brown, gold, green and cream. I have dusted off my quilting tools and sorted out some lovely strips of fabric as well as cutting out a lot more strips. This is for a child quilt :)

 

So, as the nights draw in I return to my crafting :)

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!

.

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 :)

Our new bedroom - gaining inspiration from on line shopping sites

As some of you may remember, Compostman has been refurbishing and redecorating our guest bedroom with a view to making it our bedroom. He has been very busy, rehanging the door, putting in new skirting boards, new flooring, he also did a complete repaint with a lot of preparation needed first as the plaster was so bad.

When we moved in to Compost Mansions we chose the smallest bedroom to sleep in, mainly because it had the chimney breast in and was the warmest room in an otherwise very cold house.  But it was rather cramped in there!

The guest bedroom is much larger and has two windows rather than just one and we always planned on moving in "eventually".  But "eventually" ended up being 16 years...

Well you have to think about things before you act, don't you?

Anyway, the room is finally completed, Compostman did a terrific job and we are so pleased with the result!

The colour scheme in the bedroom is similar to that which we chose ( after much argument discussion ) for the sitting room. With the wooden floor, furniture and doors the effect there was (in our opinion) really lovely - lots of earth tones. It was only after we finished that we realised the colour scheme was similar to one we had seen in an online paint catalogue!

Regardless, these are our favourite colours and we wanted a similar, warm, cosy effect in our new bedroom. Compostman and I discussed colour schemes but in the end we decided we liked the caramel/terracotta/chocolate theme so much that we would use the same colours again. And of course we still had lots of paint left over, so it was a thrifty move to make as well.

So in our new bedroom we have one terracotta wall,

the other three walls are caramel and we have picked chocolate coloured blinds for the windows. 

Obviously to turn a painted room into our new cosy bedroom I had a wish list of things we needed;  a bed, headboard, mattress, wardrobe, lighting fittings, several chests, new curtains/blinds and at least one bookcase (!) as well as blinds, a rug or two, a blanket chest and pictures, candles etc.

I did a lot of looking at various Pinterest boards and magazines and on line shopping sites to get ideas - there are lots of lovely things to look at, and I get a lot of inspiration from on line stores even if I don't buy that many items from them. I  always come away from an on line browse with design ideas for colour schemes - both for the house and in the garden.

After a good clean up and polish we re used our old wooden wardrobe and chests and with the new wooden floor the overall effect is pretty good, although I do say it myself :)  We removed the old carpet and took it away - we inherited it when we moved in and it was old, even then, but not in a good way.

We have moved our divan bed and headboard from our old bedroom - I would love to have bought a new bed, something like this Auvergne divan from Tempur which I spotted on the Olrids and Downtown on line shopping website. It is exactly the right colour to go in our new bedroom. But we have a perfectly good divan bed and headboard with a new-ish and expensive mattress, so sadly this lovely bed had to stay on the wish list of things I would like, but can't have. I have ordered a chocolate brown valance sheet for our divan bed, though it is a poor substitute.

Another thing on my wish list were blackout blinds - I got the idea to replace the (very old and rather faded) curtains with blinds when I was asked to review the Hilary's Web Blinds site and I realised just how much better blinds would be to shut out the light. I managed to find some blackout blinds in exactly the right colour chocolate from Argos. The old curtains have been washed and cut up for patchwork and rags.

The room had some old and very tatty down lights, which we wanted to replace so I was really pleased to spot the lovely down lights we now have, on the Homebase website , for an on line discount price. I have only recently realised that things can be cheaper if you buy them on line and then collect in store, rather than buy them in the store!

One item on my wish list was a rug and I saw one (again on the Olrids and Downtown site) which I was quite tempted to buy. Then I remembered I had a wool rug stored away in the loft which we inherited from Compostmans parents' house. I got it out and it was a very similar colour scheme and design (which is why I liked the on line one, I guess!) and it is just right for the room :)

There are still bits to put away and more pictures to hang on the wall, but we have been in our new bedroom for a week now and are very pleased with it. I do have a small amount left over from the budget and we would like another bedside chest so I may buy this one.

Or I may not, and instead put the money toward redecorating our old bedroom (last room and then we are finished, for now!)  or even towards fabric to make the log cabin quilt I have in mind for our bed in the new bedroom :)





The view from one of our bedroom windows.

Snapbox photo printing service - review

As you may have noticed, I love taking photos. I love to document my day. I carry a small Fuji Fine pix camera around with me all the time and I snap away, documenting and capturing what I do, as I do it. I use these images in so many ways - I obviously put them on here and on The Compost Bin  :-), I use them to illustrate talks and lecture notes; I refer to them to see what I was doing and when, I check back to see what "this time last year" looked like in the garden, and so on.

I don't pretend to be a particularly good photographer, but occasionally I do see an image I have captured and thought "ooh I like that - I wish I could have that as a print" but somehow I never get around to actually printing it off. I used to print off a lot of my shots in the good old days of film but since the advent of digital cameras I haven't done much printing.

I was recently contacted by SnapBox  an innovative digital photography service newly launched in the UK by established fine art printing company, JONDO. Snapbox very kindly offered me a free print in return for trying out the service.

Compostman has been refurbishing and redecorating the guest bedroom and it will (very soon!) become our room. We have a new colour scheme on the walls, a new floor, new blinds, a new flower bed to look out at, so what better way to brighten up one of the windowless walls than to put up a lovely print?

 

So, I went to the website, uploaded my chosen image from my computer, cropped it until I liked what I saw, picked a size and then put it in my basket. During the process you get to see what the print looks like, in the frame, against a wall. A few more key strokes and lo, I had purchased a print to hang on the wall. 

The whole process took me less than 10 mins from start to finish and was much like loading images onto Blogger (only faster!) 

Apparently you can also upload a photo from your mobile device, or select one from your Facebook albums. Alternatively you can email an image from your device to Snapbox.

 I was most impressed that the print arrived the NEXT DAY! I ordered it at 11 am and it arrived the next day by courier at 2 pm. What about that! The parcel came well wrapped up in recyclable stuff - I will be adding the cardboard to the compost bins.

 

And this is what I chose - it is one of the Bumblebee images I took from the Centaurea next to the polytunnel door.I am so pleased with this print - it looks just like I wanted it to and the image quality is excellent.

At the moment it is standing on my dresser in our bedroom, waiting for me to get round to hanging it on the wall.

Disclaimer -This post mentions a company who sent me a voucher for a free print, in return for me trialling the website and going through the ordering process. It originally appeared ( in an expanded form) on The Compost Bin. As always, the words I write are my own and are my honest opinions.

Snapbox photo printing service - review

I love taking photos. I love to document my day. I carry a small Fuji Fine pix camera around with me all the time and I snap away, documenting and capturing what I do, as I do it. I use these images in so many ways - I obviously use them on here :-), I use them to illustrate talks and lecture notes; I refer to them to see what I was doing and when, I check back to see what "this time last year" looked like in the garden, and so on.

I don't pretend to be a particularly good photographer, but occasionally I do see an image I have captured and thought "ooh I like that - I wish I could have that as a print" but somehow I never get around to actually printing it off. I used to print off a lot of my shots in the good old days of film but since the advent of digital cameras I haven't done much printing.


Anyway I was thinking about  printing off a couple of my recent images, and wondering if I had enough printer cartridge left and if I had any of the "special" photo paper left, when I was contacted by SnapBox  an innovative digital photography service newly launched in the UK by established fine art printing company, JONDO.

Now Snapbox have conducted some research and apparently I am not the only person who no longer prints off their images. Their press release highlighted that

people have fallen out of love with the tradition of printing and displaying photos in the home with the top reason (19 per cent of respondents) being that they now have far too many photos to choose from, possibly following the surge in daily smartphone photography.

over a third of Brits (36 per cent) have lost valuable photos after relying on their smartphones to store them. New innovative digital photography service, SnapBox, found this includes ten per cent from dropping their phone down the toilet (4 per cent whilst drunk!) closely followed by eight per cent in the bath.

As you may remember Compostman has been refurbishing and redecorating the guest bedroom and it will (very soon!) become our room. We have a new colour scheme on the walls, a new floor, new blinds, a new flower bed to look out at, so what better way to brighten up one of the windowless walls than to put up a lovely print?

Snapbox very kindly offered me a free print in return for trying out the service so I went to the website, uploaded my chosen image from my computer, cropped it until I liked what I saw, picked a size and then put it in my basket. During the process you get to see what the print looks like, in the frame, against a wall. A few more key strokes and lo, I had purchased a print to hang on the wall. 

The whole process took me less than 10 mins from start to finish and was much like loading images onto Blogger (only faster!) 

Aapparently you can also upload a photo from your mobile device, or select one from your Facebook albums. Alternatively you can email an image from your device to Snapbox.

I can't wait to see what my framed, mounted print looks like, I will let you know when it arrives :-)

 Disclaimer -This post features a paid link to a company who sent me a voucher for a free print, in return for me trialling the website and going through the ordering process. 
As always, the words I write are my own and are my honest opinions.

Summer Colour Givaway!

The nice people at Spalding Bulbs contacted me recently to ask me if I would like to run a competition/ givaway on my blog. Being a kind sort and liking to give you little presents from time to time, I said yes please.

All I had to do, was to select an item I wanted from the website and then they would send me two of it. One for me and one for you :-)
 
Bearing in mind I have to post this item onwards to the winner,  I selected some summer flowering montbrecia bulbs   athough the Spalding Bulbs website had seeds and all sorts of other tempting gardening items on display. As they only post out the very best, the bulbs are available at certain times of the year only.

I picked Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora ‘Lucifer’ the more well known variety with beautiful red flowers. Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora ‘Emily Mckenzie’ has orange flowers which look more like a lily flower.
 

I have a place earmarked for them and hopefully they will be a beautiful display in a few months.

So...leave me a comment and in a couple of days I will pick a name out of a hat and send the lucky winner some bulbs. Due to postage and customs I am afraid UK readers only, please.

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.

Watering cans and easy watering in the polytunnel

With the warmer weather this week I have been lugging a lot of these around.

It can get really hot inside a polytunnel during the day and all my precious plants need lots of watering.

As you all know, I love my polytunnel. But one of the things I don't love, is that the previous owners of our house erected the polytunnel on top of subsoil, dumped from when they had the garage built. This means I can't grow directly into the soil in beds but have to use large pots ( I use builders buckets with holes in) to grow my plants in. My system works well and I get great crops, but I do have to water everything, by hand, a lot more than if the plants grew in the ground.




In the height of summer that means at least 20 mins, morning and evening, spent watering the polytunnel. I don't begrudge the time spent as I enjoy tending my plants, but it also means I can't go away for more than a day unless I arrange for someone to come in and water the polytunnel, in my place.

I use a hose and a watering lance for larger plants, but at the moment the tomato plants are still small and seedlings need watering with something a bit more delicate and directable, hence all the watering cans!

I have often wondered about setting up an automatic watering system inside the polytunnel for use in the height of summer, which I could connect to the tap and set with a timer. We use Hozelock type fittings on all the taps and I have been looking at various online sites for suppliers and found Easy Watering to have some good ideas. I just need to work out how much it might cost, which system would work best for us and who to buy it from.

Inside the polytunnel I need to apply the water either on the top of the pots directly or into the gravel trays they stand in, so I think some sort of  drip irrigation system  (also available from Easy Watering)  might work best in there. I could lay the main hose up the middle of the floor with the side branch hoses leading to the trays or pots - each tray holds three big pots so I wouldn't need too many side hoses (there are typically 16- 20 gravel trays on the floor at the height of the growing season.)
 
Outside in the veg garden I use soaker hoses laid on the soil in the beds, as well as assorted spray fountains placed on the soil. I only use the soaker hose when needed and always when we are around to monitor it so I don't need an automated system there. I also use the water we collect in the water butts where ever I can.

By the way, this is the experimental potato bed, finally fully planted up with the straw/compost top mulch layer in place.  I will let you know how the experiment goes and how it compares to the harvest from the adjacent bed, which I planted up using my normal method.

So, it is time for me to have a think about our future irrigation needs, both automatic watering systems  and any different/additional  manual equipment we need to source.  I tell you though, if we ever get the new polytunnel up and running in the newly cleared and levelled area it will have raised beds I can plant into!

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.