He thought he was helping.....

This is the second day running where I've headed outside to get on with the garden, lasted 30 minutes and legged it back indoors because it's soooooooo cold out there.
I'm very fortunate that I have the opportunity to garden all day every single day if that's what I want and I always feel bad if I've let the weather dictate to me or I'm having one of those Blah days when I simply don't want to garden. Luckily I am a crafter too and I love making cards or making and building things for the home almost as much as gardening so with one of my daughters recently having moved out I have a bedroom to redecorate, a room to turn into a craft room and a room to turn into an office - busy, busy busy!

Back to the garden though.
I'm glad I held off planting out the veggies and flowers that are waiting in the polytunnel, the new growth on the flowers would most definitely have suffered with this cold wind and I don't think the veggies would have fared any better.

The new pond is the area we're currently constructing on the garden, although Mr TG still fails to see my vision of the finished product.
The pond will be edged by sleepers and the liner will go over the top of the sleepers and then I'll fix some kind of coping to the top, Mr TG does not get this and I'm not sure whether he genuinely thinks it won't work or whether he's being deliberately awkward - I suspect the latter to be the truth.
Thankfully Mr TG began the digging out for me and I did suggest that if the soil he digs out is good that he could put it on top of the newly manured area, saving me barrowing some from further afield.
I left him to it and when I returned this is what I found

What you're looking at there (from the bottom up) is part of the pond dug out then the darker manure Mr TG laid for me, the next paler stuff is the soil from the pond and then you can just see the darker soil I've been laying to the area.
Now does that paler stuff look like good soil to any of you? Anyone?
Is it just me or is it blinkin obvious that it's clay and that Mr TG has just dumped a pile of crappy soil onto my garden beds? Not only is it crappy clay but it's the exact same stuff that I've been diligently removing and/or improving to that exact area for the past few weeks.
Arghhhhhhhh!!  Grrrrrrrrrrrr! $%£DFGH&THMM(&^%$$

I kept my cool though and simply politely suggested that he dump the rest of the stuff elsewhere....if he knows whats good for him.

Here's the pond partly dug out

It's nowhere near deep enough yet and I still have to put 3 edging sleepers in but you get the idea - I hope! Mr TG doesn't though!
That pond soil is now pure clay and it's going to be very difficult to get out but the pick axe will help - hopefully!

With nothing else moving along outside I decided to take a piccie of a new flower popped out in the polytunnel. Say hello to Iris 'Pastel Charm'

Sharing at

Tilly's Nest

Brrrrrrr!

The weather here yesterday was nothing short of chuffing freezing! A cold wind was blowing in along with sporadic bursts of rain. When is this weather going to finally become a little more predictable? Luckily I hadn't put some of my plants in the polytunnel outside to begin hardening off because that wind would have ripped right through them, I think I'm looking at at least another month before we can trust the daytime weather here not to kill our young veg plants.

I sowed Leeks (Mussleburgh) a while ago and they've been really slow to get going this year, I know they'll grow rapidly from now on though so I guess I better decide where I'm going to plant them. For some reason this year I have not even made a planting plan for the veg, I have loads of seedlings waiting to go out and haven't even allocated them their space yet - I'm a naff veggie grower aren't I.

Not ready to go out yet but at least they're growing now.

Due to the weather I haven't managed to get stuck into more of that clay soil but I did take a picture of what I next have to 'makeover' for this landscaping plan.
I'm beginning to wonder whether this landscaping idea was one of my finer moments ...... or not!
The problem I have with that clay soil is that I have to get it dug over before summer because I will have no hope of even getting a fork 2" in if I don't. Luckily the clay soil appears to be contained to the foundation areas of the house, the rest looks like it will be pretty good.

Look at all the stones and rocks I have to move before I even begin to turn it over. Eek!

During the clear up I did find this rather neglected Black bamboo. Now some would say it looks dead - me included - but I'll hang on to it and see if resprouts.

Not looking too hopeful I admit.

I hope the spring weather is warming up wherever you are.

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!