Filed under: Brainstorming, Doing, Learning, Recycling, Thinking | Tags: battle, cloches, copper, defence, drinks bottles, egg shells, recycled, slugs, snails, war
Okay so we had to lose our virginity at some point. You create a nice bed, you plant stuff, it grows, then slugs and snails come and eat it…
One of the first things planted out were some beans which got utterly munched within days. It was clear that some extra thought was required and non-lethal reinforcements came in the shape of cloches made from plastic drinks bottles, broken up egg shells, copper from wire and coins, and midnight slug and snail raids with my brand new head torch!
Not wanting to kill any of god’s creatures, I have just been throwing them over the fence so far which seems to have worked, making a huge dent in the local population and seems to keep everyone happy as next door don’t really do much with their garden and there is lots of nice green stuff growing there.
Our veg is safe for now…
Anti slug defences
Anti slug defences (Part 2)
Cloches made from used drinks bottles to protect from snails and slugs
Cloches and netting to protect young plants
Filed under: Doing, Thinking | Tags: cardboard, claudia pohl, edge, mud, mulching, pond liner
As previously mentioned we now have a pond but quite a bit of the black liner is showing which is kinda bad news as it is more likely to get punctured as a result.
The back story is that it is virtually impossible to make a small pond which is deep enough to keep bugs and grubs happy over the winter without having some steep edges. Depths of over 70cm are advised so frogs and toads can survive the pond freezing but it you only have a metre or two for your pond you are not then going to have shallow enough sides so that any organic matter can sit on the liner for stuff to grow in.
I thought I might have a go at mulching the edges with cardboard and then piling some mud on top to cover it over. In order to stop the mud from falling straight off the cardboard I peeled back the top layer from dampened cardboard to reaveal the bumpy underside, threaded some twigs into the cardboard to create ridges and made very thick icky mud which was really really fun! Seriously – this is an excuse for adults to make mud pies… oh yes.
Seems to have done the job nicely thus far and hopefully plants will start to bind it all together creating a long term organic cover over the liner.
The problem - visible pond liner
Cardboard ridged and threaded with twigs covering liner
The solution - mulched pond edge covering liner
Claudia planting around the pond
It seems that in order to be a half credible permaculture project you need to have a soft fruit area so we cleared a bit of space in ‘The Glade’ as Racheal has now christened the woody bit of our patch and set to work making a new home for our gooseberry and raspberry plants.
The glade - pre soft fruit area
New soft fruit area
Filed under: Collecting, Doing | Tags: butyl, cardboard, elder, liner, old carpet, pond
Dig a great big hole, over 70cm deep so things will survive the winter, leave shallow bits around some edges for plants and creatures to hang out in.
Find some smelly carpet and cardboard from the street for lining and wack on top a huge sheet of butyl bought from Aquatics Warehouse.
Add soil and then fill with tap water. Add some pond water from a friends pond. Be patient and trust mother nature will do the rest:
Dig a big arsed hole
Cardboard and smelly carpet from the street
Angela lining the hole with carpet
Pond lined with butyl and weighed down at the edges by stones
One slightly muddy pond ready for bugs and bits
You will also notice the lovely new stepping stone path which was made from marrying my sledgehammer with the previous concrete monstrousity, the bath tub in it’s new home and the beds which I have marked out using the boughs of some elder which have been recently felled to clear the canopy.
Finally invite over small child to catch imaginery fish
Filed under: Doing | Tags: herbs, planting, propagator, rachael durrant, salad, stoop
So our house has a lovely big stoop which being south facing, gets a lot of sun and is ace for eating, playing music and now hopefully growing…
My new housemate Rachael and I have been busily filling it up with pots filled with chamomile, caraway, wild flowers, a selection of salad leaves and various other bits and bobs.
Note the lovely new watering can and a fancy propagator from my grandparents. Happy days.
Rachael on the stoop
Filed under: Doing | Tags: okra, Propagation, rachael durrant, sowing seeds, toilet rolls
At last, ’tis the time to start sowing!
After waiting an age for some seeds to arrive from Tamar Organics, Rachael and I got involved with some toilet rolls, potting compost, propagating okra and tomatoes.
Everyone seems to have an opinion on the best way to propagate so I am going to break ranks and try everything which means using a rag tag army of bottles, cartons, toilet rolls, food cartons, leaf mulch, compost, soil and love.
Rachael sowing okra
A little while back I ordered two waterbutts from Water Butts Direct – I was hoping I might find something I could reuse around the street but haven’t yet so buying these in seemed like a good option.
Fitting them was a bit of a chore because I can’t get access to the back wall of the house so as you can see from the picture below I threaded a grey ten metre pipe from the black diverting harvesting thingy attached to the drainpipe, down the stairs to the waterbutts below:
Filed under: Doing, Learning | Tags: chit, chitting, dibb, dibbing, Laurieston Hall, potato, potatoes
I was up in Scotland over the weekend visiting some friends of mine at Laurieston Hall, an intentional community near Castle Douglas. They were all up nice and early on sunday morning to dib potatoes and kindly let me get involved too!
The 101 on potatoes in that you need to chit them which can be done in a number of ways – basically you just leave them somewhere and they sprout little green shoots. Most of us have done it by accident before so I am sure you are glad you now have a name for it so next time you can make it look intentional. Then you dib, which is the lingo for making a hole, I seem to remember them being about a foot deep, then you plant them. Nice. These were ‘earlies’ which go in in March and I have totally forgotten all the rest I learnt about potatoes… must take notes next time.
Jamie dibbing
The bottom of a potato - note the little bump
The top of a potato
Lots of other things growing here too - Laurieston Hall in spring
Filed under: Collecting, Doing | Tags: bath tub, crates, old shower curtain, packing crates, shower curtain
A friend of mine who imports pottery was about to skip some used packing crates …and did I want them! Of course….
After wrestling with myself a little, deciding whether to varnish or paint them, I have left them natural but lined them with an old shower curtain I picked up from Hackney Freecycle to try to prevent too much moisture from coming into contact with the wood.
The space outside my studio is fairly shaded so I have popped a couple of raspberry canes in each along with various bulb and flowers that were in the lovely old bathtub that used to hold them and I have now emptied of soil and been allowed to take from my outside studio back home to form part of the grey-water recycling system – thank you Laura, the Landlady.
Hopefully I can guide the raspberries around the fence
Old tub ready to move to a new life and home
Filed under: Doing | Tags: apple trees, blackmoor, blackmoor fruit nursery, buying, fig tree, gooseberry, mail order, post, pruning, raspberry
This week we took delivery of two apple trees, two gooseberry bushes and twenty two raspberry plants – which is what happens when i get carried away shopping online late at night. If anyone wants a spare raspberry plant do hollar otherwise a spot of guerrilla gardening may be called for to spread the berry love.
What's in this box then?
Trees in the post! Now where are the instructions?
The apple trees are M27s which you will of course know are ‘very dwarfing’ so will not grow to more than 2 metres high. Just for the record we ordered them from http://www.blackmoor.co.uk/ who were ace…
Products
——————————————————
1 x Raspberry Collection 10 Canes Of Prosen & 10 Canes Of Polka = £19.00
1 x Apple Discovery M27 – 1 Year Maiden Bare Root = £12.45
1 x Apple Winter Gem M27 – 2 Year Bush Bare Root = £16.00
——————————————————
Sub-Total: £47.45
Best Way (Shipping to United Kingdom (England) : 9.15 kg(s)): £10.00
Total: £57.45
We also gave the fig tree and surrounding plants a good haircut to make a bit of space for new things and to encourage the fig tree to fig.
Look... you can see the fig tree now!
Also getting the chop was the hangy stuff growing up the elderflower tree at the back. I can’t remember the names of the hangy stuff but it wasn’t ivy and was rumoured to have pretty flowers. My mum knew what it was called and so did the girls so hopefully I will remember to ask and write it down next time.
Other action has included collecting some unwanted pottery packaging crates to turn into container beds, bringing more bags of compost from the park to join the party, ordering water butts and nice organic seeds, and lots and lots of cutting up pruned bits of plant so it takes up less room and creates a cosy nest for furry animals.
Not much to say here other than making this cute little stepped path using boughs from the plum tree has made me happy as larry – which is very happy for those of you not up to speed with dated english slang.
A cute stepped path made from a plum tree bough
It may not have anything to do with growing veg but somehow couchsurfing feels like it belongs on this blog.
Basically you sign up to a social networking site of people who are happy for you to come and kip on their couch. Nice, huh? Have a peek here – http://www.couchsurfing.com/
I have had one person to stay so far and all went swimmingly. My first couchsurf will be in Glasgow in two weeks time.
Apparently Natalie searched couchsurfing for 'axe murder' and I came up
By the looks of things the plum tree has been in trouble for sometime. Jamie gave us some tips on pruning back in the autumn but advised us to leave it until february for the big chop.
Tree haircuts are fun… in fact anything that gives you an excuse to climb things is fun… perhaps that is what ivy is useful for… constantly regrowing so we can keep climbing back up and cut it back again…
Official advice includes pruning tree back to four main bits (boughs I think!) and generally getting rid of anything that looks unhappy. Things to look for include bark condition, branches doing funny things like doubling back on themselves or wrapping themselves around each other… etc etc…
I hope the squirrels let the tree alone this year to bear some plums.
Claudia up the tree
Nacho couldn't resist dropping by from next door to play with tools
A little while ago I posted an entry about drying squash seeds and I have been saving and drying these and other seeds since including pumpkin and melon.
There was a little incident recently when mice found the seeds but luckily they only ate a few of them and then moved on to tastier finds.
One of the annoying things about saving and drying seeds is how fiddly it is… cue my housemate Jakob with an ingenious idea – why not put them, goop and all into a big bowl of water, mix it about and let the seeds float to the top! Much more fun…
A really nice day today tidying up the back end of the garden.
First we broke the previously felled tree into small bits which we piled up in a nice cosy looking corner perhaps for some wildlife to use? Then I rediscovered the path along the back of the garden with the help of a spade and grrrr…
There's the path
Then we got riddling again, sieving the soil from the middle of the garden, back onto the rear bed…
Riddling time again
Looking nice now, huh?
All we need now are some little winding steps leading up to the rear bed. Maybe next year!
Laura and Claudia perfecting the Hackney 'asbo' look
Our third bit of planting
…with a twiggy covering to stop them from being eaten.
Filed under: Doing | Tags: angela mcsherry, brick path, compost, free, hackney downs, liz, lovely, park
With the concrete cleared from the front of the house, Angela kindly helped me fetch sixteen more bags of free compost from Hackney Downs Park and Liz started to make a lovely path.
Free compost - lovely!
How many bags can we fit in one go?
A slightly blurry Liz rakes the compost
Lets make a path
Finished but we ran out of bricks for the path
Filed under: Doing | Tags: bulky waste, concrete, dean firth, fun, hackney council, laura, sledgehammer, smashing
Outside the front of the house is lots of boring nasty concrete which has been covered in layers of builders junk for the last few months whilst the basement flat has been being gutted and rebuilt.
After seeing the mischief going on in the back garden my landlord gave me permission to work on the front garden – I am not sure if he realised quite what I had in mind :-)
With a little help and instruction from Dean and the purchase of a lovely new sledgehammer the concrete didn’t stand a chance…
Take one concrete patio and add Dean with sledgehammer...
No concrete now... much better!
Concrete bagged for the council
Hackney Council charged me £35 to take away all of the bagged concrete which was paid for by my landlord. Happy days.
It was wet, it was cold, it was 4th december and the camera ran out of battery… armed with a bow saw and a bit of grrrr the tree stood no chance.
For the record, the tree was crowding out the plum tree, fighting a losing battle with ivy and blocking much sunlight to our main bed so it had to go.
Whilst not in the garden we have also been insulating the loft. I read somewhere that if everyone in the country did this we wouldn’t need to be building nasty new coal power stations. Better get to it then.
With a little research, Warmcel 100 seemed to be one of the most effective environmental materials about for insulating. It is made from fire-retardant recycled newspaper also treated with antifungal stuff. Lovely.
I bought mine from Natural Insultions who were very good value and quick to deliver. It came in nearly 30 bags which needed fluffing up before being spread around… which sounds a lot easier than it is. I was usually knackered after doing two bags and needed to save my stamina for playing and teaching guitar. I thought it was going to take an afternoon but it ended up taking nearly two months of little loft shifts.
We were very lucky that the landlord agreed to pay for it and trusted us to get it fitted ourselves, it cost around £300 and is supposed to save us over £100 a year in heating bills.
Nearly finished now...
Jakob gets stuck in
