A little bit more done.

Rest days from work eventually came round again....and after a few hours kicking back fishing I was ready to get my back into some more soil shovelling. The lad who dropped us two tons of top soil off must have had his generous hat on.....there is at least 4 ton maybe more ! We finally filled all the raised beds, the carrot planter and still got about two and half ton left !

The seeds in the pots and propagators inside have been doing really well. The courgettes are growing like mad and I think we will be planting them on into bigger pots....still giving the risk of frost so we're going to keep them indoors another couple of weeks.

Our two varieties of courgettes.

The chilli plants are staying indoors and are about ready to re-plant in bigger pots.....I ve been reading that if they start to look leggy then they need re-planting up to their arm-pits, or to the first leaves. So we need some bigger pots tomorrow and then I ll get them moved before work.

Our leggy chilli's

The pumpkins have finally popped their heads up and so have the first tomato plants.

 Pumpkins.

Our first ickle tomato plants.

We've also bought a few cheap little sow and grow pots, two Scotch Bonnet peppers and one Sunflower....time will tell whether they grow or not !

First job was to get the bloody flipping...fu!?#*..stupid, chuffing hedge trimmer started...after blood sweat tears and a complete thesaurus of swear words it finally started.....the hedges being trimmed was the easy bit....that hedge trimmer will i'm sure end up meeting a premature end ! We also despatched the stray Willow tree that was growing up through the middle of the hedge and it really does look a lot neater now.

After a quick trip to the tip we set about filling, raking and levelling the beds, then it was finally time to get some of the early veggies sown. First though I wanted to get the bean supports up. Cane and garden twine was soon knocked into a sturdy support.

The beans had grown like magic beans inside, the soaking overnight really brought them on, they had long root shoots within 36 hours. God knows if I ve planted them right, the books said a few centimetres deep then rake over fine soil and water so that is what we've done ! I think we've planted twenty two sprouting beans, so we should have plenty of runner beans this summer....hopefully ! The broad beans are going to go in a round tub with a cane wigwam for supports.

The spuds have also gone in today, we chitted them on the window sill and all of them had a good two centimetres of growth on the shoots . We've planted them in bags , a few bags of first earlies and a few bags of second earlies. All situated in a nice sheltered sunny spot.You can see the first early bags in the above picture, the second earlies are a little lower down the plot in front of bed two just out of the picture.

We had a little break after the soil shovelling and paid a visit to my new 'toy shop ' the garden centre ! The Spring centre just down the road from us has been getting a regular visit by us both , today we treated ourselves to lunch as well as some more garden treats, it was lovely.
I also got a couple of new toys....a lovely shiny new hoe and a trowel and hand fork......oh dear I'll be buying beige and comfy shoes next !

On the way home I turned off the main road and treated Kim to a few minutes of socialising with the three donkeys that live at Sigglesthorn....bless them they are gorgeous...next time we must remember to take them a carrot and a few apples.

Back home and we quickly planted our newly acquired strawberry plants out in pots and also sowed some more seeds. Bed one was given some turnip seeds, some beetroot seeds and some shallot sets to keep the garlic company. Bed two is still empty for the time being. Bed three has the runner beans in it and I also added some Swiss Chard and a row of radishes.

Not a huge change in how things look but slowly there are little bits being added.

So a busy two days again but despite being hard work it is so therapeutic as well, time to think but also time to unwind.....and it is something we can do together which I am really loving.The best bit though is the cold bottle that was produced just in time for me to call it a day.

I hope the next few work days pass quickly so that we can do a bit more. Percy Thrower eat your heart out !.........Kim said "Percy who ? "..........cheeky so and so !

Bye for now.

The back breaking work nearly done.....at last !

So after the hard couple of days last week we had another two tons of gravel delivered to finish the paths between the beds and some pavers delivered at short notice due to a shed being ordered.

So what have we done ? Well the beds are half full, I ve knocked up a raised planter for the carrots to go in, hopefully beating the carrot flies by being a couple of foot high. We ve sonw some seeds indoors in propogators and so all the window sills to the front of the houyse are loaded with seed trays . The seed potatoes occupying the remaining indoor space and they are chitting well. We ve just had another two tons of top soil dropped onto the drive and it is like black gold ! Proper dark soil to fill the potato growing bags with and the remainder to spread onto the beds

Today has been a long day up and in the garden for 8am digging out the base area for the shed then sand and cement mix levelled and finally the 16 pavers. Shed is due on 5th of April , so once that is in place we can then get rid of the old shed and sort out the space at the back the garage for the ladies house,our chuck chucks ! They will hopefully be settled in before the end of spring.

So at last a sit down with some food and a pint....I am knackered a very hard 11 hours in the garden today but it is looking something like now.

The best discovery of the project so far is our local builders merchants.....what a little Alladins cave it is in 'Woods of Hornsea, plus spend over a tenner and delivery locally is free...bonus !
We've invested a good chunk of our money in the garden now but we both feel that it is now becoming 'our' garden and it will be worth it in the long run .

So that is about it for now, next on the list is to build some bean supports in bed number 3 , sow carrots, beetroots and get the garlic and shallots in....it's a busy old game this gardening lark ! Oh and to build a picnic bench and a bird table....so that's the next two rest days spoken for .,  

Ta ta for now.

The first stage

Well the time has come for gardening to become exciting ! Now I must be turning the corner to middle age....or perhaps gardening is just appealing to the younger generation...hee hee.
Anyway we both had been saying that we should set aside some of the expanse of grassed garden for a vegetable patch, only it seemed daunting as to where to start. First we thought about the bottom end of the garden but that would mean full sunshine all the time with no let up except at night. So after much deliberation we decided to give up the side of the house part of the garden.

Raised beds were what we fancied and after thinking about scaffold battens as a first choice we tried to source some used ones locally but failed. So railway sleeper sized chunks of wood were then considered and we found so me that were not too badly priced and could be delivered.

Soon an order of 21 railway sleepers, 3 tons of topsoil, 2 tons of pea gravel and a ton of sharp sand was placed.The weekend would be busy one !

A turf stripper was hired and what a job the neat little machine did, soon stripping off the top layer of grass and and moss leaving a reasonably level base of top soil.

After a good deal of sweat and back ache the beds were soon constructed and the pathways between set out.

Some of the turf was laid upside down (grass side down) into the bottom of the beds to compost down hopefully ! Then on top went a mixture of topsoil and general compost. I think that we will need to add some more top soil once all settles down a bit.
The gravel hasn't gone as far as we'd hoped and so another two ton's will be on the way ready for next rest days.
So that's about it for now. We'll be starting some seeds off in window sill propagators this week and then some plants put out next month.
We've still got a good chunk of grass, for now at least  but room for expansion of the vegetable garden if we want to.

His lordship watched over the work, no doubt he'll sleep tonight after a hard day being foreman !

 

 We'll try to keep the blog updated with how the garden comes along, the successes and the failures as well.

Bye for now. DKD. (David,Kim and Duke)