Ruddy ducks and gruesome gorse.

Remember those darned Gorse bushes I had to hack at in an attempt to rescue ducks that didn't rescueing last week? Well this is what those spear like thorns do to a person

This is why I hate those bloomin shrubs - the spears are bad enough when they intially jab you but these after effects go on for days and hurt reeeeeally bad - did I mention how much I hate hate hate Gorse bushes?

Have to admit I am thoroughly fed up with these ducks now. To even catch a glimpse of them we have to sneak round to the pond as silent as a ninja, which is not easy considering there's gravel everywhere and we have to pass by a Great Horned Owl that hates people and makes a sudden racket if we dare to approach in clothes he doesn't recognise.
We usually get about a 3 second glimpse before the feckless ungrateful creatures head for the reeds and out of sight. Well I had a plan to help reduce that - remove half the reeds!

Sounded like a good plan until it dawned on me that I am the only one with the time to actually get in the pond and do it. It should be done every year really but last year we didn't do it at all because we were sulking after the Otter ate all our fish!
Here's the reeds that act as a hideout for Daphne (formally Jasmine - I got the name wrong), Donald and Daisy

It's worse than it looks because that only shows a bit of the pond.
So I bravely donned Mr TGs waders and slipped into that conga eel infested pond trying desperately not to think of all the creatures eyes that were on me just waiting for their moment to pounce.
Have to say I was very grateful for the lack of rain lately because it meant that the deeper areas of the pond were only chest height and there was no swimming required.
2 hours were enough in that pond for me in one hit. There is plenty more that needs pulling out because the far side reeds still cover half the pond but 2 large areas were trimmed right back (gotta leave some for the ruddy ducks)

I left the reeds over the decking areas to dry out and as a peace offering for all the eels and iguanas that may happen to have got caught up in them, but then I realised the decking is rotted and I could very well be going through it when I collect the reeds up - great!
So basically these ducks are boring - seriously boring! And I am still determined we need a Goose though I would settle for a Peacock!

Oh no, it's clay!

I made a start today creating the new flower beds for the garden and let me tell you this is not going to be easy to accomplish. The first area I'm doing was covered with gravel on top of carpet and carpet underlay and I had to shovel all that gravel off first. The problem is I never do things the easy way and I'd made such a mess around the garden that I couldn't get the wheelbarrow to the area so I had to hand trowel the gravel into a trug and then cart the trug to the patio to deposit the gravel. 100 trips later and I'd finally got rid of the gravel!
The underlay came up quite easy as did the carpet and I was quite excited to inspect the soil beneath assuming it was going to be half decent, well it wasn't

What you're looking at there is compacted clay. I saw a few areas of darker looking material and had hoped that it may indicate all was not as bad as it first appeared so I started test digging

Nope, it's definitely as bad as I had feared. That soil was a pain to dig and exceptionally difficult to break down, not only that but in the first 4ft x 2ft look at what came out of it

And that was just the ones I got going down a forks depth.
I've never had to work with clay soil before so this is going to be a learning curve for me but I do understand the pro's and cons of this type of soil:

Pros's

1. Retains moisture.
2. Tends to be nutrient rich.

Cons

1. Slow to warm up in spring.
2. Compacts easily.
3. Drains slow.
4. Tends to heave in the winter.

I'm going to have to really work some manure into this, the good thing about that is I will also get the worms I need for my wormery - yay I don't have to buy any after all.
I'll also incorporate some grit and then I'm going to be barrowing plenty of top soil over from the polytunnel, hopefully in a couple of years I'll have some decent soil going on here.

On the upside my pallet wood fence has worked at keeping the dogs out - so far.
Mr TG hasn't taken pity on me yet and offered to replace it, he did however offer to furnish me with various colours of paint so I could paint it rainbow colours. Yes, he was being sarcastic! His only actual input to the fence was "Yep you're right, those pallet fences do look good". Sarcasm again Mr TG.
I did have to offer Huntly a bribe to make him feel his half of the garden was the place to be, he's lost his table top from where he watches the golfers so I offered him a little more luxury

Yup he's quite happy.
Atlas on the other hand is much happier here

6.30am, it's freezing and he wants to swim!

Garlic & buckets of tea!

One of the many plants I've never managed to grow is Garlic. I know, I know, it's supposed to be darned easy but nope, I've never got a bulb to even peek out of the ground.
That was it, after several ridiculous attempts and the blinkin blighters doing absolutely nowt I gave up - I'll buy the darned stuff.
Then a few weeks ago I perusing another gardening blog - Fromseedtoscrumptious -  and this guy - George - was chucking bucketloads of garlic into the ground, covering it and had amazing results. It seemed that this guy could grow Garlic like I can grow weeds!
So I thought why not give it one more try? Only this time I wasn't buying garlic bulbs not when I had shop bought ones in the fridge. Yes I know that apparantly this isn't the right way to do things and I could possibly be setting myself up for another failure but I figured I'd plant 6 cloves - yes, a measly 6 cloves. I figured 6 cloves would take up no room so when they failed I wouldn't miss them any.
Well, I lifted the netting of the bed in the polytunnel today and look what welcomed me

OK so I know they're not exactly anything to get peeing your pants excited about but believe me, that's the best I've ever managed to grow. In fact if they all die from this point on I'll still be chuffed that they even chose to grow - wish I'd planted 6 bulbs now instead of a measly 6 cloves.

On another exciting note - ok exciting for me - here are 2 of buckets of Seaweed tea brewing happily away.

All I did was fill the buckets to halfway with Seaweed - I didn't even bother rinsing it first because the salt levels really aren't high enough to bother about - and then filled them to the top with water and covered them over. The stench from these as they brew is gonna be a bit stinky.
As my hosepipe has been put away for the winter and the house is way away from the polytunnel I used water from the pond to fill the buckets.
This pond is a real convenience to my polytunnel, it is completely natural, drains the land and has no liners. We think at some point in the past a previous owner may have created it by digging it out at the corner of the water ditch that comes through the land. The pond does have the ability to run off into another ditch and carry on through to Shelligeo burn further down the land should it overfill.

 

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Nifty thrifty things.