Garden DIY projects

I'm one of 'those' gardeners that despite having what seems like a hundred unfinished projects on the go I am always on the look out for inspiration for more to do. As a consequence of this I am adicted to 'Pinterest' and sadly can admit to spending a ridiculous amount of time on it most evenings.
The weather here has prevented any kind of gardening for some time now, I can't even mow the lawns as it's too wet and on the days when it's just cold rather than rainy it's just too windy to get motivated.
This has given me time to add to my growing 'Pinterest' folders and I thought that as I have nothing to show from my own garden right now I would post some wonderful garden projects that are cheap and easy to do - I'm all for cheap (preferably free) and easy.

I found these concrete globes on 'the garden glove' along with a fabulous tutorial with 4 different recipes depending on the finished look you prefer. For me it would have to be the pure cement one for 2 reasons - 1) Cheaper - I'm not into buying ingredients if I can help it and 2) I think it would lend itself to spray paint alot nicer than the others.

I came across this next project on 'Creek Tree USA' and they describe these as ceramic hummingbird feeders, obviously I would have no need for that here (though maybe Bee or Butterfly feeders) but I thought they would make the cutest plant supports with very little cost or time.
Pretty door knobs are selling for a couple of pounds for a set of 4 in many of the cheaper stores (none of which I have here) and the right gauge wire would only cost a few pounds too. It would be very easy to attach the wire to the door knobs and voila - no more poked eyes.

Hopefully this year we will be building new pillars at the top gate and I have always wanted to add a Narnia style lamp to the side of them. I did some research on the lamps though and to get the exact one I wanted I wasn't going to get much change from £400, plus the cost of then running electrics up to it. I turned to Pinterest to find an alternative.
This guy, Mark, has come up with the answer for me and I'll definitely be doing it. He's constructed a Narnia style lamp from wood and best of all he's included a solar light to the top so no need for wiring. It may not be the exact style I was looking for but it can easily be adapted to what I want and the guy has even done a video tutoral on it. Check it out on 'Mark's DIY solar lamp post'.

This next project is so simple and obvious yet I never would have thought of it in a million years. I'm always thinking that I wish decking was a bit more comfortable underfoot so I could go outside barefoot in summer, obviously a rug isn't going to last too long out there and will only end up smushy and horrible. Not now!
Laura from 'Design share' has given us a fab tutorial on how to turn a tablecloth into a waterproof patio / decking rug - imagine all the wonderful colour and pattern choices available. This is a definite project for me this year.

I have no lighting in my garden currently - I must be one of the few people who just hasn't got round to it - and so I'd like to start adding a few pieces especially around the patio seating areas. I'm not really into buying the ones on stakes though because I can get a bit OCD about them being perfectly upright but I found this great idea (one of many on Pinterest), unfortunately I cannot find an original link to who created it but the photo speaks for itself - vases, stones and solar lights.

Again I cannot find a direct link to the creator of this next one but I like it so much I wanted to include it. It really is a simple idea and seeing as I have all the ingredients to put it together I will definitely be doing this to add some attraction to my garden. I'm not sure how to do the knot but I'm sure a google search will be productive.

I have plenty of wood scraps laying around, usually I put them in the log shed for winter fuel but now I have seen these I think my garden will instead be plastered with scrap wood animals. I'm not sure whether I want a moose but definitely dogs, horses, hens etc.
'Painted Therapy' provides a good tutorial using a Silhouette Cameo but I think I'd prefer to freehand draw.

Have treess, must plant!

Although we sit on approx 4 acres of land the majority of it is taken over by horrible spiny Gorse bush which is pretty much impossible to kill off. When we first moved here we spent the first year pulling all the Gorse up with the digger, piling it and setting fire to it - we figured that would be enough to kill it. What we didn't realise was every piece of root that got left behind would simply re shoot and run riot again within 2 years, not only that but we discovered our soil is peat based and the fires we started would re ignite up to 2 years later with just the slightest gust of wind.
Since then Mr TG has strimmed some of the land each year to keep the Gorse at bay but most of the land has just been left to do what it does. We have a lovely burn that runs through the edge of our land and is surrounded by native deciduous trees (a sight that is very rare here in caithness as most trees are Firs), unfortunately we cannot access the burn without extremely padded clothing because when Gorse prickles stab you they huuuurt, plus they leave a mark that can easily go septic.

See those spines - impossible to walk through this stuff, it forms thick dense hedges  and grows as tall as me (5ft 4) BUT the flowers are beautiful, they smell gorgeous and make the loveliest popping sound when the pods explode (although any joy is marred by the knowledge that the popping will be followed by millions of seeds setting themselves)

This year Mr TG decided he was going to make a start on clearing the land. He wanted it turned over and levelled so that we could mow it and eventually kill off the Gorse. To cut a long story short, due to the Gorse and Marsh grass no local farmer is willing to risk their machinery on it and the one company who does have the machinery won't do it because we helped a neighbour who had a dispute with them. This means Mr TG had to set about it himself - which involved strimming the area, raking it, rotovating an area several times, removing boulders and then levelling it. Bless him, I didn't think he'd be able to do it but all spring he worked on one area when he had the time between contracts and that little area now looks great. He had to stop for the summer partly because we have other more demanding jobs to do and partly because the weeds were growing back quicker than he had time to clear them so the next area will now be started on in Autumn.
His progress so far though looks great

The area to the right hand side is pretty much what the rest of the land looks like except it's covered in Gorse also. He has to go further up the way too, right up to our boundary at the house at the top.
Anyway the idea is to have land that is safe for the dogs to pelt across as currently it is full of deep digger rutts and holes so when Mr TG asked if he could have my Mountain ash trees that I had grown from seed I had assumed he would plant them around the edge or maybe in 2 or 3 clumps. Nope Mr TG decided to dot them all over the lovely green area (about 12 of them) and then pinched my garden markers I made to protect the trees! We now have a lovely green lawn that is a nuisance to mow because we have to go around so many tiny trees  and the dogs can't pelt across it because there's too many trees on it.
I'm looking forward to more of the land being completed but I think we're going to have to invest in a ride on lawn mower, just the new area takes at least an hour to mow already (it's a larger area that it looks in the photo), but I'm also keeping it tree free!

A....erm....pallet wood monstrosity.....

Today I built the perfect example of everything Mr TG hates and loathes about a DIYer getting their mitts on pallets - the pallet fence!
I hear your cries that pallets make excellent fencing and I myself agree, however NOT the way I built one.
I'm not the most patient of people I'll admit and as I often say I don't work from a plan either so alot of my projects are doomed from the start. However I had put a little thought into this one, well as far as deciding what I was going to make the fence with anyway, the fact that I didn't have anywhere near enough windbreak netting put plan a in the bin.
Plan b came to me as I was scouring around looking for suitable fencing materials. My eagle eyes settled on Mr TGs quicklock scaffolding, well he has plenty of it so I figured he wouldn't miss what I needed. Problem was how was I going to secure the scaffold panel to the ground because a) I couldn't be bothered with hammering stakes into the ground b) I didn't have any stakes less than 9ft anyways and c) this thing is supposed to be temporary (well it's now definitely gonna be that cos one wind will probably take this thing down).
I finally decided to hammer the legs of each panel into the ground - cool huh! With that done I sat back and looked at my new fencing and realised two things a) The fencing was now so low that the Great Dane could easily step over it and b) the height didn't matter because the dogs could get through the gaps in the panel anyway.
See, this is what happens when you don't plan Linda!
Next brainwave should have been to take it all down and forget it but no, not me, I stick pallets in front of it instead and as if that wasn't bad enough I tied the pallets to the scaffold with bright blue twine.
This is so not what I had in mind but here is the finished disaster result

How not to make a pallet wood fence

Atrocious isn't it. I so didn't have this in mind when we decided to start landscaping the garden.
And all because these boys keep demolishing my garden and plants. Going to have to have a permanent area sorted for them soon though because we need to be landscaping the half of the garden they're now banished to. Would you believe these guys have 4 acres they can destroy other than my garden........

Atlas & Huntly, the reason my garden is a mess and now sports a naff fence.

As if the front view wasn't bad enough here's the back view and what I have the pleasure of seeing whenever I work out there

Oh the shame!

I'm hoping that Mr TG will either hate it or take pity on me and help me sort something else out because I just cannot work with that lol.

On another note, I inspected the veg beds and garden beds round at the polytunnel today and one of the first things popping through is this

Garden thug - Horsetail

Grrrrrrrrr! Blinkin Horse tail. This stuff is the bane of my life round the polytunnel area because the ground is boggy near the pond and this stuff thrives there. I have never come across such a rampant, tenacious impossible to kill weed in all my life. I could ignore it if it stuck tot he pond edges but it comes up through the veg beds, the flower beds and even in the polytunnel.
I hate this stuff!

The Bees are finally buzzing...at least one is anyway!

I had the best surprise ever when I went into the Polytunnel yesterday - a Bee! But not just any Bee, this is the first Bee I have seen this year and I have a Pear tree and a Plum tree in there that could seriously do with some pollinating.
Shame the little guy took off from this position though and proceeded to buzz around the plastic

This is where I need the little guy to be

I did try hand pollinating as all my fruit trees are self fertile but I don't think I did a good job of it - much better if Mr Bee does it.

I also managed to get some of the veggies pricked out and potted up individually. It's going to be a fair few weeks before it's safe to plant these guys out though

The original Sweetcorn that I sowed died. I thought I may have been able to save them but it wasn't to be and luckily I made another sowing just in case they didn't make it, so thankfully I have more Sweetcorn on its way.
I have plenty of Cabbage (Greyhound & Golden Acre) and Cauli (All the year round) for the first sowing, I'll make another sowing in a few weeks.
The Tomatoes (Roma, Black Russian & Gardeners delight) all seem to be doing well. The Swede (Invitation), Cucumbers and Courgettes (I must post the varieties) are all romping away in the polytunnel.
I've got French beans growing too but they won't be able to go out for a few weeks neither will the Leeks.
The ground is still quite cold at the moment so I am going to have cover it with plastic to warm it up a bit so that I can get the Parsnips in.
So far I have had absolutely no success with the Celeriac sowings. I've done two seperate sowings and tried one in the heated propagator and one in the polytunnel. The propagator ones grew sporadically then just withered away and the polytunnel ones have yet to show any life at all.

And because all the veggies are growing I needed to make some more veg markers. I didn't want to make completely wooden ones for the veggies though because I needed something that would be quick to make and require nothing more than cutting and nailing, plus I wanted whatever I wrote the veggie name on to be weather proof so here's what I came up with

Granted they're not the most stunning of markers but they were quick, easy and free to make. All I did was cut that wood to the length I wanted, cut up an old milk carton to get the plastic I wanted then folded the plastic over on top and nailed it to the wood

I'll make the more ornamental ones I posted about HERE for the garden plants or plants that are in tubs.

Garden stakes & plant markers

The weather here in the Scottish Highlands is pretty much wet and windy and does not make for a happy gardening experience (insert sad face here).
We head off to sunnier climes in a weeks time so could have done with the weather helping me to get certain jobs done before we go - oh well, I'm sure I'll not worry too much about boggy, unkempt garden borders when I'm basking on the beach in Jamaica (insert self satisfied smirk here).
The lovely Scottish weather forecast has dealt us a tale of cold and snow for the next few days so I'm suspecting that other than preparing two weeks worth of wild bird feed for my daughters to put out on a regular basis while I'm away, that the garden is just going to have to plod along on its own for a while.
One thing I did try to do this week though was to make more plant labels ready for the sowing season. For most seed sowing I use plastic plant markers I make myself from empty milk cartons - click here to see -  but for anything more permanent or for plants in pots where I want to showcase the name & species etc I make plant markers from scrapwood.

Scrap wood plant labels.

These are so easy to make with just a few supplies and make fantastic garden markers - here's what you need:-

• Scrap wood - I used lath type size
• Hand saw or electric cutter.
• Lost head nails or small headed nails.
• Hammer.
• Permanent marker pen - Molotow every time for me 
• Outdoor clear varnish.

First step is to cut your laths into the length you require for the stake part of the label, mostly I stick to 8-10" but it depends on how far you want to stick it in the ground.
Then using your cutter of choice cut the ends into a point.
Next lay the lath on it's thin edge and cut straight down the end that's not pointed at a 45 degree angle.
Cut another piece of lath about 4 or 5" long and nail it onto the angled end of your stake so now when the stake is planted the face you write on is also sitting at an angle and is easy to read.
Finally write the name of your plant on the face of the stake, varnish it and leave it to dry.

That's it, it can now be used. Obviously you can paint these any colour you wish before writing on them and varnishing them - it's your choice!

So easy to make!

 

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