Tidy up

                     

So, February. Normally, the start of outside gardening, with bed clearing and bed digging and mulching; but its far too wet and soggy and cold to do anything outside

So I decided to clear out the porch ready to start off the tomato seeds in the heated propagators.

 Its a bit of a mess in there, old plants, stuff dumped over Christmas, old growing medium still in the propagators and lots of cobwebs

Part way through, much tidier!

I cut back the overwintering geraniums which were in the porch as well and put the stems into a jar of water for later propagation.

It felt good to be doing something to do with gardening!

A messy polytunnel.

I shamefully left tidying up my polytunnel until December this season, just been too busy and too unwell and too stressed to get around to it.

Then of course DEFRA dictated that the hens had to be kept undercover so the Seramas, rather than just being housed in there at night and free ranging during the day, are now shut in all the time.

This means it's a tip in there.

I am going to have to get on and sort it out as soon as I am well enough, even with the Seramas in situ. 

I don't grow much in the polytunnel in winter, I have some herbs and a few different salad leaves on the go but we tend not to eat much salad stuff in winter! I DO use my poly tunnel to overwinter various pots of herbs and patio plants, and also as a sheltered place to put the Serama runs and houses to keep them warm at night.

I know the protection order is in force until at least 28 Feb 2017. I do hope it doesn't go on much longer, as I need the polytunnel in March to start  growing on my pepper and tomato plants for sale and for our use.

Tidy up time in the Polytunnel

So, it is that time of year, again. Where the plants in the polytunnel are beginning to look sad and there are hardly any fruits left to pick. Or where the shorter days means dampness and humidity and botrytis and moulds.

So ...time to pick the very last of the green peppers and tomatoes, to ripen inside the house on a sunny S facing windowsill.

And to have a good old clear up of the polytunnel!

I also washed a load of plant pots ready for 2016 growing season

While Compostman got busy using up some solar electrons cutting wood with the new electric chainsaw, He reports it is very handy and a lot easier to use on small stuff than the big petrol chainsaw.

Hungry Bin and Can O Worms sort out

@hungrybin @omlet @wiggled

I posted a couple of days ago about the HotBin sort out and I have now sorted out the various wormeries which live by the polytunnel as well. One of the reasons I got my hands so dirty yesterday :)

I first emptied out the Can o Worms wormery, bought from Wiggly Wigglers many years ago now and still going strong! I harvested three bucket fulls of lovely worm compost

.

I then emptied out the Hungry Bin tray and got another bucketful from that.

I don't need the compost just yet so I used  a spare CoW I got from Freecycle to store the compost in, five trays full of worm compost - that will allow it to dry out a little and I can use the worm juice in the polytunnel.  I added a top tray with the contents of the kitchen caddy so any remaining worms will move up into the top tray out of the finished compost.

Looking into the Hungry Bin this shows that worms do not eat compostable caddy bags - these obviously need to go into a compost bin for other compost creatures to munch at them. I have added a caddy at the foot of the Hungry bin so we all remember to put the bags in there.

Job done. You can see the orange rubbish bits bucket on the  far left hand side then moving to the right, the "compost storage" Can o Worms, next to it is the "working" Can o Worms wormery, next to that is the Hungry Bin wormery, then the caddy I have put down for the compost caddy bags collection, then the HotBin and the plant hardening off bench with some brassicas waiting to be planted out in the ( newly dug) veg patch. Finally the wooden bench with cold frame on top, containing various perennial plants waiting to be planted out into the new Bee attracting bed by the House.

I got a lot of work done in an afternoon. This area tends to be a bit of a dumping ground ( the outdoor equivalent of the Study of Doom!) and so it was good to sort it all out. Now this area is nice and tidy again.

More from the Study of Doom...

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After what seems like forever tidying and de cluttering and sorting and filing -

I found the diary! Which means I now know when I have to visit the Dentist and the Opticians this week, and hand over lots of money to them  - hmm not so great.

But, I found last years diary as well, so I managed to complete an expenses claim (the diary had the invoices I needed to finish the claim, inside) So money in as well as out.

 Much improved :)

I also had a clear out of the Cupboard of Doom ( craft workshop storage cupboard) and made room for a number of the storage boxes containing things I don't use very often to go in there. This has freed up the shelf space for things I use frequently, and I was also able to move some of my quilting and sewing stuff from off the floor of the sitting room (where it has been annoying Compostman for weeks )

I took a lot of stuff to the Red Cross charity shop in Ledbury and the recycling bin got a few bits of paper and card.

Big crafting table looks a lot tidier now

And there is now room for the ribbon store and another box of yarn under the big crafting table.

What is it people say? Tidy desk, tidy mind? Hmm we shall see.

Decluttering and tidying up in the Study of Doom

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Hello lovely people, been a bit of a gap since I last wrote anything - I have been very busy with outdoor things now the slightly better weather has arrived; I have also been unwell with a tooth and sinus problem and have spent a few days where I didn't do much at all so all in all a bit of a mixed week this last week.


Car insurance renewal, Dentist and optician appointments are coming up in the next week, not helped by the fact that I could not find my diary to know when, exactly !  I knew it was somewhere on this desk (Gulp)


So I realised I needed to have another go at my desk and the Study in general.   I have been attempting to declutter this room again,   I do this so often and yet the "stuff " just keeps on creeping back. I have no idea why <cough>

The Study contains a lot of stuff. I store a lot of crafting, Forest School supplies, books, computer (in there somewhere!) my desk (somewhere!) and lots of other essential stuff. I regularly file and tidy away yet it usually looks like a bomb has hit it after a few days. 

I can't even blame Compostman, as this is MY side of the Study! He does not dare encroach onto my patch but keeps to his own half. His is a bit tidier...

I loathe tidying up as it is such a waste of valuable growing/composting/chicken cuddling/crafting/cake eating time, but needs must. So after I filed and tidied up and put away all the stuff on the desk ( and found my diary!) ,  I got to work and sorted out and put all my knitting and crochet yarn into their storage boxes. I have two of these full of yarn as well as the "works in progress" yarn which is downstairs. These are just the spare yarn boxes.,

These are some of the quilting fabric stash - there are two large plastic boxes full of cotton fat quarters etc as well as several bin bags of sheets, shirts etc in the loft.

The needle felting box. This is the stash box. I have a small box with what I am currently working on downstairs.

Main crochet yarn stash box and needle felting box tidied away neatly under the computer desk. There are several wallpaper pattern books next to them which I use in my paper craft workshops

Still lots more to tidy up and give/sell/recycle away but at that point the sun came out so I went outside into the Polytunnel to prick out some tomato plants.

More from the Study of Doom, next time...!

More garden work.

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

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

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

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

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

Hopefully it will look more beautiful, after!

Tidying up and sorting out in the Polytunnel

 It's that time of year...when crops are finished and it is time to have a clear out.

My tomatoes are finished and all the pots are full of weeds. It all needs emptying and composting and scrubbing out and sweeping up.

So, I emptied and dug and pulled and swept up...

And when I had some clear growing medium I planted out some spare Kale, Spinach and Sprouting Broccoli plants, which will stay inside the polytunnel and give us some nice, early, tender greens in the winter.

I already have some growing which we are already eating now  - the pots on the left contain big  Nero di Toscana and Red Kale plants.

I also picked some of the sweet peppers - they have done well this year and are now in the freezer, having been chopped up and roasted in olive oil.

I have more winter crops to sow in the pots, as and when I finish a bit more tidying up I will sow winter greens and carrots, so we have some tasty leaves and baby carrots to eat.

A very dull day indeed!

Horrible and damp here all day but I made a start on clearing the Poly tunnel

so having made some space I moved the various small animal runs inside the polytunnel
I now have Guinea Pigs plural as I got 2 more rescue ones,  in what was once the Broody Ark but is now GP central.

The two new boys have settled in with Fudge and apart from a bit of posturing and teeth chattering, all is well (phew)

Peter Rabbit also in the polytunnel in his run, he goes to be neutered tomorrow and when he has healed up is getting a rescue doe as a companion.

Compostman has laid a path to the hens today using some of the Freecycle slabs we got a few weeks back, which will cut down on the swamp like appearence of the garden I hope...we make numerous treks out to the hens and it is already a sea of mud.

Tidying the Polytunnel

I have shamefully left tidying up my polytunnel until December this season...one of the many casualties of my being preoccupied with my Forest School portfolio evidence gathering and dissertation writing I am afraid!

I don't grow much in the polytunnel in winter, I have some herbs and a few different salad leaves on the go but we tend not to eat much salad stuff in winter! I DO use my poly tunnel to overwinter various pots of herbs and patio plants, and also as a sheltered place to put Fudge the Guinea Pig in his run though...

And of course, once I get my tomato, pepper, aubergine etc plants on the go in January they need to go into the polytunnel (inside cold frames to protect them from frost) to grow big and strong!



As you can see it is all a bit of a mess

THIS is the damage the cats have done to my roof!

I will have to wait for drier weather before I can use my magic polytunnel fixing tape to mend these holes as best I can as it is too wet at the moment!

As New Year rushed rapidly towards me last week I made a decision; I could NOT allow the New Year to enter my life with a messy polytunnel...the New Year means its the start of the growing season here, so how could I plant anything knowing my growing place was such a tip?

So despite it being an average of -3 all day here for the last week, and a cold -7 ( thats celsius, by the way!) at night, I spent the last few days of 2008 outside cleaning up my beloved polytunnel. I viewed the freezing hands and feet as suitable pennace for leaving it so long!

loo roll tubes, various plastic containers and coffee bags waiting to be used as planters for parsnips, seeds or to be turned into bird scarers


Milk or water bottles cut down to be used as water reservoirs in the summer, planted in the ground small hole first next to thirsty plants.

Sid the Cat having a snooze. (It was - 2 inside the PT when I took this shot!)

I have a mesh panel in the door which is great for air flow in the hot summer but needs covering in the cold winter....

So I covered it with an old compost bag split lengthways, to keep in what little warmth there was....

Tender herbs and patio pots sheltering from the cold...

covered with fleece to protect them from the very cold we are currently experiencing.

Me having a break from the cold...I brought out a flask of hot coffee each day for the 3 days I was clearing the polytunnel, I know I am only 30 secs from the house BUT it saved me an hour or probably more ( 2 coffee breaks, each one taking more than half an hour to go inside, take off my boots, boot socks, hat, outer gloves, inner gloves, x 2 fleeces etc, drink coffee made for me...then put all the out door gear back on)

and I actually enjoy drinking a hot drink outside whilst I am working....

Re-covering the floor needs doing here, a job to be done soon I think!

I get loads of strawberry plants growing everywhere all the time inside the polytunnel...I recycle them..but thats another post I think ( so watch this space....!)


As always, I have chicken helpers around, whatever I do....



Lots of stuff to cart away to add to my compost bins!



All done! I have a tidy polytunnel again!

I have all of January to get on with other stuff now, as I have completed an important, major, outdoor job and can cross it off my list knowing that WHEN I need to use the benches or the floor it is all there, ready and waiting for me....

It feels good....

:-))