Roses, rabbits and a really hot greenhouse!!

A couple of weeks ago we took the plunge and bought a greenhouse! Obviously neither of us have ever used a greenhouse or even have the first clue on how to grow things in it but its like everything in the garden of ours - its a 'wing it' approach!! The first challenge was how to build it and to be honest if it wasn't for Jim and Michael (unwilling volunteers!!)we wouldn't have even got the thing built properly as the instructions were shocking! We duly started shoving seeds in there and we now have a huge collection of growing cucumbers, courgettes, peppers, chillis, rocket and tomatoes and lets face it - there is only so much of this a couple can eat!! John has already started giving the seedlets away and we spent today planting out the gynormous courgette plants that threatened to take over the greenhouse in only 2 weeks!! I dug a rocket bed and planted some of the hundreds of shoots that have sprouted up in the last week. My only hope is that the current crowd of rabbits suddenly don't decide to take a shine to the bed. I have also put netting over the bed so fingers crossed!! This leads me onto the roses - John decided he wanted a rose plant - OMG they are SO expensive!! Well we purchased a rose plant from the garden centre at Castle Howard and decided to plant it next to the stone bench in what was a mole hill!

Unfortunately the mole decided he still wanted the hole and has tried to dig it out of the ground ever since! It looks like rose versus mole is ending up with the roses winning and it is now flowering!! Thank goodness!!

End of season goodies!

So its well and truly turned cold and we have been desperately trying to do end of season grass cutting and to collect what's left of the goodies we planted earlier in the year. We have had some successes and some disasters. For a start - the potatoes were rubbish. They seemed to develop black leaves and the crop was only about 3-4 potatoes per plant. I think the soil needed some extra nutrients. The brassicas started off great and we had about 6 cauliflowers which were yummy - then the caterpillars attacked and decimated the cabbages, and brussels!! Our successes includes beetroot so much so we have given loads to the neighbours and the family. With what's left I am trying to make some beetroot wine - watch this space on that one!!

I have also been doing some baking and made a chocolate and beetroot cake but it wasn't very nice. Next success is the carrots - a couple of weekends ago I spent hours washing, sizing, chopping and par boiling and ended up with freezing 7 bags.

I can't finish without talking about the raspberries. We planted summer and autumn varieties and they started cropping in august and I have been picking them ever since. I have been eating them for breakfast, cooking with them and I actually made some jam for the first time ever in my life!! I also have 3 bags in the freezer!! They are still cropping so I may think about raspberry wine!!

Pews, patio furniture and paint!

We are now proud owners of an old 8 foot church pew taken from our local church in Welburn. According to the church warden it is at least 200 years old and made of solid oak! After an unsuccessful trip of trying to get it in johns car (sorry John and Alan!) I managed to secure the services of Will who was painting our peeling windows (he owns BDR Décor, is ace and comes highly recommended!!). So Will and John (his very able assistant)drove me to the barn where the pews are stored and promptly shoved it into the back of his van - unfortunately the back doors didn't shut so John had to ride in the back holding the doors together hoping he or the pew wouldn't fall out!! We have cleaned it up now and oiled it and its lovely. You can still see the old graffiti carved into the wood. A neighbour saw it and wondered if any of the graffiti was hers as she spent many hours in sunday school. It now has pride of place by our wall for tired souls to rest their weary feet! We also have now got some new patio furniture which has been right royally christened both by ourselves and my brother and his brood a couple of weekends ago. Along with our new firepit which doubles as a BBQ we are now sorted! Lets hope summer continues!

Patios and arbours!

So finally the patio is finished - we are just waiting for our garden furniture to arrive and it will be in full use! We also bought a fire pit at the weekend and spent 2 long evenings with it lit, listening to Pink Floyd and watching the local bat population swooping around us once the sun went down. Big thanks to Creative landscapes for their great job and we would certainly recommend them (www.creative-landscapes.co.uk) We also have finally spent the rest of our cash from the sale of our motorhome and bought a lovely arbour from Castle Howard garden centre. It came flat packed and with lousy instructions so took Mr R nearly 3 hours to build. But again it looks great especially next to our new wall. We have put it in the bottom of the garden in a spot that has the sun all day. We christened it with a lager and its a great place to sit and ponder!!!

More walls!

Dick, our builder, also said he would tidy the ends of the walls we had removed to get an entrance into the garden. This also meant remodelling the coping stones too. It did seem to take ages especially as Dick actually went off for a weeks holiday just as he started and his helper disappeared after 1 day in the job!! Anyhow the end point again is great!

Walls and builders!

It's been a busy few months for various workmen! The good weather has finally meant that we could get the jobs done that were outstanding! Firstly the gate into the other field at the bottom needed removing and the entrance blocking up. Amazingly we found a huge stash of stone, presumably from the original wall that once stood, buried in a corner of the garden so our builder, Dick, although a little slow and slightly unreliable managed to get the wall built and what an amazing job he did too!!

New veg!

We have veg that we can actually eat!!! As you can see we picked our very first veg today - a cauliflower, some new potatoes, a small beetroot and some greens!! This is all for our dinner tonight - you can't get fresher than that!!