What did you do in your garden today?

[Colin]

Hi,

With the usual heavy rain and gusty wind forecast I was pulling the petrol rotavator out of the garden hut at 9 o'clock this morning; I dragged it to the top of the mountain then waited to get me (why does spell check interfere changing MY to ME) breath back allowing me to fire it up. It was an horrible job due to the steep slope of the garden and the sodden soil. 10 o'clock job done and rotavator put away after cleaning its tines. I came back indoors to die. Boy it was hard graft but I beat the weather for once.

Kind regards, Colin.

Rotavating underway; it was bitterly cold in the wind and the soil was still sodden from lots of previous rain; please note laurel stumps top right; these laurels and many more were 30' tall but last year I'd had enough and attacked them with the chainsaw; this year less work to do?

Lots of tine clearing; with the tines choked up like this the rotavator couldn't be controlled; I could wait for better drier weather but have little such weather here in Yorkshire and I'm fed up of the rain controlling what I do every day.

Job done.

Camera set level. Rotavating across the slope I had to angle the rotavator uphill otherwise it headed to the valley bottom; depth of cut was at an angle deeper one side shallower the other side of the tines.

Hyundai petrol rotavator Bron kindly bought me as a prezzie; standing upright is challenging but trying to actually do anything is a nightmare unaided by our dire climate. The trick is not to be beaten and get stuck in.

 

[Sean Regan]

Too wet for golf or gardening.
I'm "reorganising" the garage.

I've ordered this shelving from e-Bay, £26 plus free postage. (new) 180 X 90 X 40cms
It shows some of the different configurations you can have. They've sold over 1100 of them.

How can they do it for the price?
Lots of suppliers selling the same shelving.

 

[Esther Knapicius]

two weeks ago, as I was thinking about this weekend, knowing I had Monday off work, planning to rake more leaves. It has now snowed, then ice snow. so goes what I needed to do. I am so behind. hope for a clear dry February so I can get it done.

 

[Fractal Farms]

I was surprised to find my 1st cauliflower ready to pick, maybe a little bit over ripe as the bugs had already found it.

It is just behind and above Oogie (dog) and circling clockwise we zoom in on it and follow its journey into the soup pot.

I'll be watching its brothers more closely now - these are romanesco, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts

 

[DirtMechanic]

It was, and still is, the day of cow poo compost. Bare spots beware! I had 60 bags but not many left now!

 

[Logan]

Sowed some chilli seeds, Carolina Reaper,Bhut Jolokia,Scorpion, Golden Ghost and another one which i can't remember but it's very hot like the others.

 

[Sean Regan]

Too wet to do much, anyway I had a lot of Australian Open Tennis to watch I'd recorded overnight.

But I did one small job.

We've got a problem with a cat that keeps coming over the back fence and making its way down the side of the garden to hide in the azaleas next to the patio, then pounce on any of the ground feeding birds for which we put out food.

At dusk it can avoid the two PIR security lights on the corner of the shed and the corner of the garage that covers the patio.
The birds can cope with the cat during the day as it's easy to see even in the packed branches of the azaleas. But the late evening feeders can't, so well.

So I put another security light on the side of the tea-house to hopefully catch it if it comes over. It may not deter it, but at least there's a chance my wife will see it as she's usually in the lounge and can see the bottom of the garden from her chair and she'll be able to frighten it off..

Anyway, it was only six quid from my local electrical wholesaler, (how do these Chinese do it for the money?) Just a couple of screws, a hole drilled in the wall of the tea-house and the cable plugged in to one of the spare sockets on that side of the room.

I also had to re-fix the end of the gutter where it joins the downpipe. This gutter collects the water off the back of the tea-house roof, to prevent it running down and rotting our back fence. I think the cat has been standing on it when it comes over.

 

[DirtMechanic]

A motion sensor down low will catch a cat. But what then? A squirt of water?

 

[Logan]

Cut off the old leaves off some of the hellebores, have to do it a bit at a time.

 

[Sean Regan]

I've got rid of the shrub at the back of what was the pool waterfall, that grew up the fence to the left of the lamp.

It always looked good in the Spring and Early Summer. It always ended up much bushier as in this June photo.

But every year the leaves always later got black spots on them and started to fall at this time of the year when the new growth starts to appear.

Anyway, I was sick of clearing them up and pruning the diseased ones off.

We'll get another clematis to grow up the fence post and hide the conduit that carries the low voltage cable to the spotlight that now shines on our new fountain.

 

[Sean Regan]

Printed off some labels for "mission control" the new consumer unit, that distributes the power to the garage and former filter room. Now, there are separate supplies each with a mini breaker, for the water heater above the hand baisin, the power sockets in the garage and room, (we've two back up freezers and my Budweiser fridge in there) , the lights in the garage and little room and all the garden lighting.

These are the sockets operated by the switches next to the French windows in the lounge, that control all the garden lighting and the fountain.





Today I fitted one of these, a mini consumer unit in the shed, to control its power and light and the power and lights in the tea-house.

I chose the double-pole version, it replaced a double-pole fused switch.

Only £12.99 on eBay

The back wall of the shed is actually the back wall of the garage.

All the cables are now in trunking.

I've just noticed the "MIND YOUR HEAD," over the door. Our youngest son put that there in chalk over forty years ago when he was 12 and the shed housed our seven year old daughter's rabbits and guinea pigs.

The main RCCB is in the corner of the garage above the old fusebox, it protects everything. It's been there over thirty years, but works fine. I do check it occasionally.

I was never worried when I had the koi pool, as it would have tripped everything out, if there was ever a "mix of water and leccy."

But now in my old age I'm less cavalier about it, there's always a chance of cutting through the lead with the Flymo. Hence the new breakers and some wiring replaced and re-routed.

 

[Sean Regan]

Finally finished with the garden electrics.
Although I've fittted a mini consumer unit to control the power in the shed and the tea-house, I've always had a fused double pole switch in the tea-house to isolate everything in there if necessary. Rummaging through my spare electrical equipment yeaterday, I found a fused switch which had an indicator light on it. So I thought I'd swop it over with the other one which has no light. Quite simple, two wires for power in, two pairs for power out, plus the earths for the tea-house lights and sockets, none of which are for any heavy loads.

Not so simple, after swopping them over, I found the indicator light was staying on whether the switch was on or off, although it was still switching off the supply.
So down to my neighbourhood electrical wholesaler for a new one, just three and a half quid.
Chatting with the assistant, another guy, obviously an electrician suggested I might have the wires round the wrong way, which I assured him I hadn't. Anyway, replaced the switch and the light works as it should, on when everything is live, off when it isn't. Binned the old switch

All the garden lighting is now sorted and can go back to how it was before, "hardly ever used," but I know it's right.


Drained the "frog pond" today.

We've always had this since I built the koiy pool. Frogs tended to overwinter in the folds of the liner, then migrated to the frog pond to pair up and spawn in the Spring. It was always a "race" between me getting a year's debris out of the pond and the frogs occupying it. Unlike the koi pool which never had any debris on the bottom, because it had a bottom drain, (you'd see a nail if you dropped one in despite it being five feet below the surface), the frog pond colected a lot of gunge and most of the leaves falling from the acer palmatum next to it. On occasions when I've left cleaning out late, I've had to net up to a dozen pairs of frogs, put them in a bucket of pond water whilst I cleaned out their home. I used to replace the water with buckets of the stuff I pulled out of the koi pool on those occasions. But as there's none in now, tap water is fine.

Some years, the surface has been completely covered with spawn, ever clump would look different from itts neighbours.

I doubt if we'll see as many frogs this year having lost their, "overwintering facility" and the apparent increased visits of a heron early in the mornings.



I also gave the fountain a scrub out and refilled it.

As you can see above, the big acer has grown over the thirty-odd years we've had it, to almost completely cover the pool, despite some pruning, (this has to be done carefully to avoid it ending up looking like a giant cocktail umberella) the lily wasn't doing well, so I gave it to a neighbour for his goldfish pond. It does far better than his fish which the heron occasionally manages to take.

I could re-site the pond, but I'm not that bothered, despite the fact that the roots of the acer have lifted the edging stones on the far side of the pond by three or four inches.

It'll be months before the garden looks this good again. Can't be too soon.

 

[Sean Regan]

Nothing today as it was a golf day.
Resolved to do a bit of weeding tomorrow if it stays dry.

The patio is desperate for a clean and I've not got much Wet and Forget left from last year, so I've just ordered some more from eBay.
5ltrs, free postage £30.89.

I've given up using the jet-wash, it's too much hard work compared to using Wet and Forget and I always have to do a bit of re-pointing between the crazy York stone paving. But I'll still use it on the drive which is pale green concrete.


I'm laying off ordering anything from China for the moment and "Chinese take-aways are off the menu" for now.

 

[Sean Regan]

Did a bit today, I spent some time scoring between the flags on the new patio where once was our 3000 gallon koi pool. This was to remove a bit of moss. Then I brushed in some fresh sand. I also re-made the little "ramp" between the flags and the original crazy York stone that dressed the concret pool collar. The mix the contractor used last year must not have had enough cement in it. I put some yellow dye in the mortar to make it match the flags, otherwise it would have ended up pale grey.

The roses in their nine ceramic tubs on here are doing well.

I'm pleased what was the pool waterfall is merging into the rockery.

I ordered a catalogue from Taylors Clematis, which arrived this morning. We need to choose one to grow up that post with the spotlight on it.

Nothing much else going on in the garden. But all the azaleas and rhodos have lots of buds.

The lawn's a bit wrecked, but it's like this every year at this time, it will recover.

We've these two troughs of snowdrops.
One lot we bought, the others were growing in the front garden under an azalea until I moved them last year.


Really need the Wet and Forget I ordered.

I was in the middle of working on my hands and knees brushing in the sand on the flags, when our neighbour from across the road came into the garden to ask for some help. She's in her late seventies and has been a widow for five years. I very occasionally do little jobs for her, but she doesn't like asking. Last time it was a few months ago when she'd been without heat for most of the day. I pressed the re-set button on her combi boiler. It had been windy and the air pressure on the flue must have tripped the cut out.

Today she was having a problem changing a halogen strip bulb in a standard lamp in her lounge. So I went over and did it for her. It took all of five minutes. She said she'd asked her son-in-law to do it, three times, in the past few weeks they only live a few miles away, but he's never had the time.
This seems a common problem with some "kids" these days.

 

[Sean Regan]

Potted out a couple of small roses which were Christmas presents in 4" pots, into 10" pots and put them on the window sill in the shed.

I gave my wife theTaylors' Clematis catalogue, to chose one to go behind the rockery. Big mistake... she chose four as she couldn't make up her mind.

"You'll find somewhere to put the others...."

I expect I will.


This is the one that I actually wanted.
Diamantina

Montana Spring Joy (this can go on the garage wall near the side wall)

Recta Purpurea

Florida Plena

They will be delivered Tuesday.