Land clearance - end in sight!

I learned a very sneaky way this week to make encourage Mr TG to come to the conclusion that I need a new workshop and that the greenhouse really has become redundant for the job - I made him believe that I am seriously considering taking over part of his own workshop / shed. It's not like he would miss the space, it's about 60ft long and I took time to explain my plans for adding windows for more light and a private door all of my own - I even explained that I would be happy to use his pool table as a workshop table until he had managed to re-site it (aren't I nice) and of course I would protect it fully from the rigours of my power tools.
I've honestly never seen such a rapid descent into panic and alarm from Mr TG and I have to say I did have a bit of fun with it. The upshot of it is though that the very next morning he had been out to the greenhouse looking at what it would take to either extend it or knock it down and completely re-build it - it would seem I now have options.
Must admit I did feel a tad guilty though when I realised he'd already been round there planning by the time I had risen in the morning and seeing as I rise at 6am daily he must have been round there at some ungodly hour - wonder if the panic of sharing his domain kept him up at night.

I've been looking at so many productive gardens on the tinterweb while I've been absent from here and yet again I'm left with that feeling that we all get from time to time. You know the one - my garden never looks as good as everybody elses, THAT feeling!
I decided to take stock over the last couple of days and see where the real problem areas are - let's just say it would be quicker to state the areas that aren't a problem or overgrown.

This is currently what I am wading through to get from the greenhouse to the polytunnel. It may not look too bad but there's ruddy thorns made from spears in that lot and it's impossible to avoid them

And who knew that Gunneras freaking hurt ......alot!
But no fear all these (except the Gunnera and tree of course) will soon be hacked back into surrender when I use my new manly girly tool - I will introduce you later on.

Another Gunnera but look at the size of those Docks in the background - they're as tall as me! In fact pretty much everything there is a weed and I'd usually have them weedkilled by now but weather hasn't permitted of late. It's now desperate!

These next two images show exactly why I shouldn't be attempting to grow salad crops and is the reason I will grow nothing more than Lettuce until I have a cold frame near the house - these plants suffer because I forget about them being so far away from the house.

This is the current state of one of the raised veg beds at the polytunnel. The Horsetail has won as far as I'm concerned! The beds are being removed and the sleeper edges will go to the garden to make the new Koi pond. The Leeks have flowered because I didn't harvest them and it really is a waste of time growing them. Next year I am growing only in the polytunnel and only crops we love to eat. These two large raised beds will be demolished and the following year I may use the smaller beds at the greenhouse but only if I think I will tend them.

On the upside we've been busy getting this land cleared and have finally been able to begin mowing it. The whole lot was covered in 7ft Gorse and couldn't be used or accessed. After months of clearing stones (mainly Mr TG I have to say) levelling, clearing, levelling again, clearing again and then chucking seed down and hoping for the best we finally have green stuff growing and land flat enough to be mowed - though I am under strict supervision with the ride on mowers now because I filled the oil container with petrol (honest mistake), black smoke ensued and a rather stern telling off from Mr TG followed. Have to say I don't get fazed by such things (just need to drain it right?) and was kind of grinning the whole time he ranted but the smile was soon wiped off my face when Mr TG confessed that I'd just screwed (sorry, nicest word I could think of for what he said) the engine of a £1500 machine. You see up until that point I had believed the mower was £500 (which is still alot but not lynch worthy) but it would seem Mr TG thought I'd go berserk if I knew he'd paid just under £3000 for two mowers - mine being the more expensive because it's hydrostatic or some such thing so chose to tell a big fat lie about the price tag - such a girl! So I explained that it was his fault I broke the mower then because I would have followed step by step handbook instructions if I'd known the machine was so ruddy expensive, to which he replied that if the oil symbol hadn't registered in my brain at the time of filling then the fact that I checked for levels with the dipstick should have done, after all what car has a dipstick in the petrol tank!
"Oopsie" says me.
Anyway I digress, here's the beginnings of green showing on the land. Yes we know the majority of it is weed because every Pigeon in the counties of Caithness and Sutherland suddenly rocked up when Mr TG scattered the seed but we don't care! It's green and it will do!

Bad, bad gardener!

I've been a bad gardener lately! For some reason I'm going through a Meh stage and have avoided going anywhere near the polytunnel or the greenhouse except to water the contents (done with blinkered eyes so that I don't have to look at the suffering plants or growing weeds) and picked the odd bit of veg.
It all started when I couldn't get out there because of the slipped disc and then when I could get out there - but not do anything - I fretted and worried about the abundance of weeds that needed clearing and fruit / veg that needed picking. I did ask Mr TG to help me weed at one point but that just resulted in the loss of all my Parsnips so after that I avoided looking around.
Yesterday I just had to go to both the PT and the greenhouse in pursuit of some bolt croppers (that ended up being in Mr TG's work van anyways) - I put it off as long as I could but when I sauntered round there I was suddenly seeing it all with clear eyes and let me just say.....O....M....G!

This is the veg beds next to the greenhouse. The French beans have amounted to nothing - probably strangled and starved by the weeds - and I had intended to use this area for winter veg as it's sheltered here. Don't think that will be happening, not unless I get in some serious weeding beforehand.

Even Bob the mannequin has become neglected and lost a leg.
Bad isn't it!
Both beds are being covered in weed suppressant asap.

The PT area was no better. The outside raised beds were full of Horse tail and bolted veggies. The carrots finally appear to have got their act together, the problem is that although the raised beds are supposed to be easier to tend they're not when you're recovering from a slipped disc so the carrots aint getting thinned, at the moment I simply cannot bend across to thin them.
The inside of the PT was just as bad as the outside - so much neglect!

This apple tree had fallen over from the weight of the fruit. I need to have some kind of support system erected.

This is what greeted me as I walked in the PT and it's much worse than it looks. Cosmos flourish in the hot conditions of the PT but I won't be growing them again. I initially grew them for cut flowers but I've only ever cut them twice as I'm not particularly fond of them. I would cut them all back now but the bees love them so they'll stay, despite their thuggish behaviour, until they die off!

My poor Tomatoes! I had such high hopes this year for Tomatoes and have been quite pleased with 'Black Russian', a new variety for me. If I had tended these carefully and had tied them in, fed them regular etc etc (that bucket of comfrey tea still sits in the PT smelling like a cesspit) they would not look so forlorn and poorly as they do now.
Next year i am going to have a better support system in place.

It doesn't end there either.
The sweetcorn is seriously competing with weeds, luckily I'm coming to the end of the cutting of them anyway. Next year I'll be using black polythene in the Corn bed.
The Cucumbers are growing rampant like never before and the Courgettes have become Marrows which has encouraged the plants to stop producing more fruits.
The sweetpea hasn't been cut in weeks so has set seed which means no more flowers and to top it off there are huge Raspberry canes growing in the Sweetpea - at least I'm assuming they're Raspberries as I grew some in the PT a few years back, but they could just as easily be Tayberry or Loganberry which grows wild all over here.

I don't very often buy plants on a whim but Mr TG and I popped into Homebase the other day and I bought a veronica plant for £6 - it just looked so pretty.
When I saw the plant yesterday I was really annoyed with myself. I hadn't potted it up and it had completely dried out and looked half dead. I rectified it straightaway and it now looks 100% healthy again but this picture shows how neglected it was and this picture was taken an hour or so after it had been sitting in water - poor thing!

So, like I said I've been a very neglectful gardener of late. The house garden hasn't fared much better, I weeded a couple of the beds yesterday but I have to admit it was painful. The big bed still needs weeding but it is going to have to wait until there is a serious decline of wasps on the plants because no way am I purposefully going near them.

Today I will probably be attempting to salvage the PT and the PT outdoor veg beds, of course that depends on the temperature today as yesterday it was impossible to spend more than 5 minutes in there it was so hot.

Next year will be different - I'm going to weed suppress everything, I'm not going to waste another years hard work because of illness.

There has been a couple of lovely flowers come out of the PT though. I planted these Gladioli bulbs without realising that's what they were and it was lovely to see their flouncy, blousy blooms.

Gladioli 'Spic and span'

Unknown Gladioli

Glorious weather and veg planting

Finally! Today the weather has been glorious and apparently it's set to stay fine for a few days - yay! It was even hot enough today to warrant sunscreen, but then there was that sad moment when I was applying it and the smell took me back to our recent holiday to Jamaica - has that ever happened to you?

Anyway with good weather afoot I figured I'd finally make a start on getting these veggies planted out - my veg beds finally have veggies in them yay!

Half of the main raised bed has Swede 'Invitation', Cabbage 'Greyhound', another Cabbage I forget the name of, Cauli 'All the year round' and Broccoli. I covered them over with fleece to stop the cabbage Butterfly laying eggs and to stop every feral cat in the area using it as a loo (yep it took alot of clearing before I could plant - Ew!)

The smaller raised bed now has Carrot 'Chantenay Red cored 2' and carrot 'Early Nantes' seed sown. I only planted the stumpy Chanteney one because I had the seeds, ordinarily I find them a waste of space but thanks to these 2 new beds I have plenty of spare room now. These were covered in fleece too because of the cats though I dare say this fleece will not last 5 minutes if the wind whips up no matter how secure they are

Last year I grew Climbing French bean in the polytunnel but they grew like triffids and took over so this year I'm planting them out on the lower allotment area (I call it an allotment but it's just my greenhouse area). I've also cut down on the amount of plants this year too because we just got inundated with them last year - though maybe I shouldn't have done that as crops may be less outside anyways. These were protected with fleece just in case we have a frost, I'll remove the fleece once that risk is gone.

On another note, the runs for the dog kennels are finally getting dug out. Once the runs are up it will mean that I don't have to have the dogs on the garden quite so much and I'll be able to relax knowing they're safe and secure and can't escape, least I hope they won't be able to. I won't bore you with details of the enclosures that Atlas has managed to escape from so this enclosure has got to be completely escape proof

See the green panel to the right? Those are what we'll be using. The enclosure will end up being about 40ft by 20ft and those bars on the panel are perfect for stopping Atlas climbing. It's gonna be a while in the making though.

Remember that garden bed I showed you the other day, the one where I had been a very lazy girl and put turfs directly on it to rot down? Well I finally got it cleared, manured and some lovely soil in it today

BEFORE

AFTER

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The Dedicated House

Bare earth and Pear problems.

I'd hoped by this time of year that I would at least have some of the Cabbages and Cauli's out into the veg beds. Alas this is what the beds currently look like

Bare!
The deeper raised beds over at the polytunnel are in the same condition as well. I was so tempted today to get some of those veggies out but I just daren't, if we get some sharp frosts overnight then I'll lose the lot.

In the Polytunnel though I did bite the bullet and get a start on the Tomatoes. Ideally I would have liked the Tomato seedlings to be more rooted in their pots before transplanting but I got bored of waiting and the polytunnel is certainly warm enough day and night to host the plants.
Here's the 4 I managed to get started on

So far I've planted 2 'Black Russian', 1 'Gardeners Delight' and 1 'Roma' but I have plenty more to be getting on with. The Tomatoes are being grown in potato bags for the first time this year. I filled the bags with homemade compost (topsoil, well rotted manure & compost) and anchored some twine in each bag connecting up to a batten connected to the polytunnel beams, I'll wrap the Tomato plant around the twine as it grows.

I also got the first lot of cucumbers planted out but only had the room for 4 of them in the polytunnel bed - 2 'Akto' and 2 'Marketmore'.

Hopefully the Cucumbers will love that manure rich earth. Now I just need to keep them warm.

I noticed that the Conference Pear tree growing in the polytunnel is showing the first signs of a leaf problem that I saw for the first time last year.
I have no idea as to what this could be and it only affects the leaves so if anyone has an idea as to what it could be I'd love to know

The lumps eventually cover alot of the leaves and I can't see any kind of bug or aphid on the tree that may be causing this.
Any ideas!

Blah, blah, blah.....

Do you ever have one of those Blah days in the garden? You have a list of jobs that need doing but you just feel Blah? You need to move plants but....Blah?  Paint something.......Blah? Build something...Blah?
Well that was me today, blah, blah blinkin blah!
Don't get me wrong I got stuff done but to be perfectly honest I couldn't have given two hoots about whether the job was done properly - I get those Blah days every so often and I guess they're the days when I should just sit and enjoy the garden (if it were warm enough of course, oh and if the plants were actually growing of course).
Last night Mr TG dug out a rather thuggish grass that was making itself known around all my other plants and had even taken to mingling with my garden grass - gasp, I hardly have any decent grass left after the dogs have mullered it so no way was I giving it up for this invasive, rude species of unknown name (though I suspect it is ribbon grass)
So today I had the wonderful task of digging out all the roots I possibly could so I could reset the area back to proper grass.

All cleared. It's a bigger area than it looks.

Then I had to relocate a Rhododendron from the same area to another area of the garden. This poor Rhodi has taken a battering from the variegated thug grass and an even bigger battering from me as I prized all the grass roots out from the roots of the Rhodi. I don't hold out much hope of said Rhodi surviving but whatever .... blah!

Rhododendron 'Cunninghams White'.

Yes, I really did re-plant it at the front of a freaking border - where was my mind!  I actually thought this was a smaller type of Rhodi but having looked at 'RHS plant selector' I see it's going to possibly grow to about 2 metres - great. Looks like I'm potting the thing in a bucket tomorrow - grrrrrrr!

On a less blah note, I pricked out my first batch of veggie seedlings and got them into small pots ready to grow on

In all honesty I was a bit premature with this batch of pricking out, they could have waited a little longer but what the heck, they'll be fine. The first few pots had Perlite put on top but I got in a mess doing it and gave up - blah!

I do have casualties though. My sweetcorn - Incredible F1 - aren't going to survive.

They're really not as pale and bleached as they look, it was the cameras fault but still they're not going to make it plus I only had about 50% success rate with what took anyway.
I've always had 100% success rate with sweetcorn so I don't know why getting a heated propagator this year made me do things differently and sow them too early with heat - won't be doing that again!
I've sown more Sweetcorn Incredible F1 today (which is the time of year I normally do it) and am growing them in the polytunnel without heat.

The best part is that my 2 new raised beds we built last Autumn are now ready for their veggies. The soil in this is pretty darned fluffy and I'm quite pleased with the quality of it. It's entirely top soil and as I haven't managed to get them manured on time I'll scatter some Blood, fish and bone a couple of weeks before we plant anything out

Those beds are alot deeper than they look too because we dug out about 2ft of soil before filling them in. Can't wait to see what they look like on 6 months time.

Any of you had or have a 'Blah' day??

The worst is over!

The storm has finally drifted off, it feels as though we have been weathering storm force winds and lashing rains for weeks but in reality it's only been a few days. A few days is plenty enough though and I hope it's the worst over with for a while.
Today I managed to have a good look around outside for the first time, not with the intention of gardening but simply to survey any damage. Suprisingly, other than an uprooted Willow tree, there is no damage from the winds.
The rain however is something else. Most areas have drained well because we have a huge natural pond/mini lake and everything just seeps into there but the new area of raised veg beds we built is kinda swamped..

Pretty icky huh?

Unfortunately this is going to take an age to drain away, if in fact it does at all because the pond level now seems to be the same height.
We're going to have to put our thinking caps on cos this is no good for accessing those veg beds.
Still compared to some of the flooding that is going on at home in England we have been amazingly lucky to get just this so I'm not complaining.

So I had a little suprise while I was scouring the garden today.
Look what I found that I never planted

Now to me it looks like a Cordyline? But I'm kinda shocked it has self seeded itself here because Cordylines need protection in the winter in my garden.
I first saw it last winter when it was just a tiddler and it seems to have grown to this size over the summer hidden in Montbretia and Day Lily foliage. Now that foliage has died back it has revealed this plant again.
I was going to dig it up and move it but hey, who am I to mess with mother nature! If this is where it likes to plant its feet and thrives then this is where I'll leave it!
It is a Cordyline though, right?