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!!

New patio

So we decided a few months ago to have a patio built - basically we wanted to make a staircase through a whole in the wall leading from our patio doors up into the garden. This was decided a number of months ago and following 4 quotes we decided to go with a company called Creative Landscapes (www.creative-landscapes.co.uk). Anyway the time came eventually for them to start the grand build and start they did! For 3 days last week they toiled away knocking down the wall and digging up the grass - eventually after several cups of strong sweet coffee (made by myself might I add!) they got to nearing completion but not quite!! Bring on next week!

We have a cauliflower - well almost!!!

We seem to have a cauliflower growing and I can't tell you how excited we both are!! I know this is really sad but we feel like parents with a new offspring!! We also have some apples and pears growing (although no good for me as I am allergic to fruit - doh!!) However we think our early potatoe crop has some bacteria thingy so we aren't sure whether we can save them - we did pull a garlic plant up but that produced the smallest bulb ever so probably not ready to harvest! Everything is so late this season apparently so theres hope for us yet!!

Strimming!

Strimming is an art especially when the grass is long and full of nasty creatures!! I did some strimming a few months ago and was bitten to pieces and ended up with lumps, bumps and rashes in places I didn't think possible!! SO I decided to to take matters into my own hands! Last week I bought a helmet with a visor and wearing a long sleeved t shirt I set about the task with enthused vigor! HOWEVER I soon realised the bugs and bits of grass and weeds could still get through the visor and ended up with my eyes swelling up, my nose constantly running and itchy and bites all over my neck. Anti-histamines are wonderful!! Anyway as I'd only managed to do a quarter of the top part of the garden I knew I needed to finish the job so round 2 commenced today!! This time I wore a top which covered my neck, the usual helmet and visor BUT I then put on a dusk mask and safety goggles. Although I was boiling hot and sweating like a trooper - it worked!! I am now bug bite free, 2lbs lighter and who cares if I look like an alien being!!

log stores and flower beds!

Bank holiday weekend - guess what we have been doing? You've guessed it - building and digging things!! We got the mad idea that we could put a log store on the drive as we have a duel fuel fire in the living room and spend most of the winter driving up and down to Castle Howard to buy bags of logs! Anyway we started the log store a few weekends ago and finally finished it today! Despite having no blinking idea we ended up with the 'botch it and leggit' version and even if I say so myself - its a mighty fine log store! We just need the logs now!! We also decided to build another flower bed and used the stone from the wall we had taken down as a border. Next time we should hopefully have the gap between the paddock and the neighbouring fields closed up if the builder ever turns up!

One man and his mower...!

Today was momentous - we got the delivery of our ride on mower!! What a lovely beast it is and will now only ever be known as Roger (as in Roger the ride on!! - Mr Rs choice might I add!!) So Roger was set to work after Tom from GardenCare explained the inner workings of Roger, where the fuel went, where the battery was and most importantly how to bugger up the drive belt thus incurring a cost of £100 to replace! Tom, at one point, started explaining the size and type of engine - I looked over at Mr R who was very much into screen saver mode!! However the most important feature was to come - it has a really well placed cup holder - a must for Mr R who has already tried it out as it neatly fits a bottle of beer!! Plus one thing Tom did do, was sell us a trailer which attaches on the back of the mower - we managed to get this for very little as we were buying the mower - so we now have trevor the trailer too!

A curious visitor

Apparently our entire village is keeping an eye on what we are doing to the 'paddock' and everyone is saying we are making it look a lovely garden (hopefully!). Well whilst digging, mixing concrete and planting plants we had a lovely curious visitor - a young racehorse!

Brassicas...

The brassicas have now gone in today as well!! Mr R decided to take a trip to Castle Howard garden centre and virtually wiped them out of brassica plug plants. Prior to that we spent the whole of sat and sun building the most over engineered brassica cage ever! You see we have a massive pigeon problem and if we had just put the brassicas in the pigeons would have eaten them all within minutes!! Although it took forever to build I am actually really proud of Mr R and lets see if the damn animals can get in!!

May Bank Hols and cement mixers!

Mr R had the great idea last week of buying a cement mixer - apparently we will need it!! I did ask why we would need it only to realise that Mr R had actually also just bought a new ride on mower and therefore he needed somewhere to store it securely! So the bright yellow concrete mixer has come in handy as we spent most of this morning mixing cement, sand and hardcore and laid a base! Mr R studiously looked online before we embarked on mixing so we got it right but the first mix wasn't really sloppy enough! 2nd and 3rd mixes were much better and hey presto we have a base. Ok the base isn't really level but as this is our first attempt we don't care! Lets hope it sets and is strong enough to hold the new mower! (more about the mower when its delivered tomorrow!)

Big shed and trellis

So finally the big shed has been moved! Thanks to our friends H&D and some well placed fence posts, the big shed was moved into its new place fairly quickly. Now we have a man shed and a girlies shed although the girly shed does need a lick of paint! Plus another thanks must go to Dave for managing to single handedly put up the trellis and what a fine job he did! We have now planted some clematis and jasmin to hopefully grow on it but thats going to take a while! Also when we moved some logs which were on the drive we found an enormous frog. Myself and Helen have now made a frog / insect haven with the logs in another place in the garden so hopefully no harm was done to the frog and he is free to get on with doing what frog's do!!

The gnomes are appearing!

Theres an outbreak! Some little things keep appearing in our rockery - I think they are breeding! I think we will need to keep an eye out!

The first cut is the sweetest!!

What an action packed weekend in the Ryan garden. Started with a delivery of 2 tonnes of sand. Not too much of a problem unless you only actually need slightly less than 1 tonne! Kept us out of trouble moving it all though. Mind you I could probably have done without the squashed dead rabbit that was mixed in with it! The result of all our sand moving is that we now have a level base for our shed - although how we will actually move it from its current location to its new home is a different matter. We also made friends again with Mr Briggs and Mr Stratton and got the first cut of the season in. Not too much taken off, but just enough to show the pesky lawn who's boss! (And it's certainly not me!) Mrs R dug some lovely herb beds, ready for planting once the threat of frost has gone - so about July at this rate - and her next challenge is to stop next doors cat using them as huge outdoor litter trays! Mr R's man shed is proving to be a hit and several neighbours have popped in for a sneak preview. I think there may be a market opportunity here.

The Easter Bunny!

The Easter Bunny visited us today!! The boys (small ones) spent 10 mins running around the garden collecting eggs that the Easter Bunny must have left!! I think the bunny was very generous this year!!!

Its painted and we have garlic!!

So despite both of us having hangovers (no we didn't drink lots last night - oh well yes we did!!) we managed to paint the shed Forest Green. AND the good news - we have garlic growing!! Mr R is SO excited that something is finally growing!!

A man's shed!

Mr R decided he wanted a potting shed - well he actually wanted a shed to call his own! We had visitors this weekend to help in the form of my brother Big Al, his partner intelligent Jane and the 2 boys Josh Bosh and Samuelus!!! Anyway finally the weather was good - the sun was out but it was still bitterly cold. The shed arrived last thursday but the shed company wouldn't assemble it as the base wasn't good enough. Mr R had put the base down in the snow the previous weekend but hadn't really done a good job!! So the shed company left it in pieces in the garden. On Good Friday we set too reconstructing the base and went to bed with half of it done. On Saturday our visitors arrived just as we were trying to finish off so I left Mr R with Big Al at it!! Eventually the base was finished and the work of construction began. Intelligent Jane made the big mistake of offering to help and ended up standing for ages holding the corners together! After great deliberating, huffing, chuffing, a number of cups of tea, cakes from the local tea shop the shed was finally erected!! HOWEVER for some reason there wasn't enough roofing felt so thats a visit to B&Q for us then!!The boys were absolutely no help at all but very entertaining. Next stop painting it but Mr R has already banned me from going into it - it is truly a Mans Shed!!

A day of rain and cold!!

So Mr R had a grand scheme for planting several things - he'd even wrote a project plan!! Anyway last sunday we spent the whole day planting potatoes, garlic and onions. This weekend we had rapsberry canes to plant, the rest of the path to lay, Mr Rs birthday hawthorn tree to plant and a flower bed to design. The weather was awful. It was snowing and raining and bloody freezing especially on the hands. Anyway we did manage all of the tasks. A good days work...(lets hope the bloody things grow and the frost dosn't kill them!!)

Part 2 of Mr Rs plan...

So Mr R had another plan seen as we had the turf cutter for the whole weekend! He wanted a new path dug up the side of the house to prepare for the development of a new patio and summerhouse! We had some pebbles left over and I found some bricks at the back of the shed so we set about sorting that out! In the meantime I managed to put some brick work beneath our new 'whirly gig' and extended the rockery so it filled the bed we had dug last year! Sadly we ran out of pebbels to finish the bottom half of the path so will have to have an emeregncy visit to Jewsons for some more!! Mr R dashed out and got some more rockery plants so I was able to finish that instead! Bring on the next few months when planting begins...not sure our backs will manage but we will do our best!!

Beds...

Well the weather was glorious this weekend following an endless stream of 2 months of snow and ice so we set about digging some beds. Mr R has grand ideas about planting potatoes, brasicas and flowers after reading his gardening book so he hired a turf cutter for the whole weekend! We started at 1100hrs on saturday with Mr R cutting rows of turf whilst I followed picking up the turfs as he went! My god - turf is really heavy and it almost blew out the wheel on our wheel barrow! My plan was to set the turfs under the hedge but by the 15th wheelbarrow full I was losing the will to live! Happily we were interrupted by our neighbour offering us a well deserved cup of tea which gave us the chance to take a break!! We were also gladly interrupted by the neighbour on the other side who was just moving in and has the maddest of spaniel puppy called Monty!! Anyway time waits for no one and after cutting and removing turf from 6 (yes 6!) beds we were done! However I soon realised we weren't done for the day as Mr R had another plan up his sleeve!