GARDEN: The Growing Update

I can't say I haven't enjoyed my time during lockdown and the opportunity to spend so much time in the garden:  May is always the most colourful month as this is when the garden explodes with blooms.

May's Riot of Roses

There's always plenty to do (as well as chill out with a book & a glass of wine, or alfresco BBQ).  But this year so far, has been about having the time to sit down with the gardening books and learn a little about growing vegetables from seed.

This area by the side of the Summerhouse has been designated as a vegetable bed. It is a nice sunny spot and sheltered from winds. I have still to lay the paving slabs from the patio to the Summerhouse, leaving a grassy spot around the apple tree.

Bamboo canes make an excellent deterrant from the neighbourhood cats seeing it as one huge litter tray until it is planted.

Grow Me!

 

It is almost ten years since the pergola was put up, so another project I have been working on is filling splits in the wood, using a flexible filler, in preparation for a fresh coat of paint.  

Couldn't be done without the obligatory cup of Tea

From the back

 A month or so later, using advice on the moon cycles from my parents, the French beans go into the ground and the vine tomato seedlings into pots.

 

Test ground for Experiment One

I have potted up 8 x vine tomato plants with bamboo cane pyramids to grow up.  The rest of the seedlings were swapped with my next door neighbour for Chilli pepper plants.  I hope I didn't plant them too late.

I thought this was a very interesting tip from a gardening book: Tomatoes are prone to whitefly.  Paint a board or cane bright yellow and then smear it with vaseline.  The whiteflies are attracted to the yellow and will become stuck in the grease.  I will be trying this.

Climb, baby, climb!

I've heard that my French Beans may be prone to be ravaged by slugs, but read that coffee grounds are a good deterrant. 

 

A French Bean: Oooo La La!

Sadly I only have five of these plants but will be planting many more next year.  These are fast workers and if you look closely you'll see that they already have small beans!

 

Cherchez les trois

The bed as it is at the moment, the vine tomatoes are on the left but once I have finished the painting of the pergola, I'll probably move them out onto the patio so they have more space. There are also three bell peppers in pots, dotted among the bean plants.

Cat crap proof cane fence.

In the Summerhouse, I have Chilli Peppers and smaller bell pepper seedlings on the plant shelf.

Peppers!

Last but not least, elsewhere in the garden, it looks like it might be a good year for pears.  The pear tree is now four years old and has never had so many pears.

Conference Pears

 

GARDEN: Summerhouse Plant Shelf

What better way to spend the time during the Covid 19 lockdown than trying your hand at growing a few vegetables.  This is a first for me as I've never had the time before, or was always too rushed to remember things like watering and plant nurture.  Now, for multiple reasons, seems as good a time as ever.

To adapt the Summerhouse with this in mind, I decided to put up a plant shelf as somewhere for seedlings to grow as well as for my cactus and succulent collection. This was made out of surplus timber that was lying around, which is also a great way of using up materials. Larger plants can always be stood on the floor.

Great light and greenhouse temperatures.

Handy as a drinks ledge too!

Having managed to procure some Dwarf French Beans in this time of seed scarcity, I was surprised to see them germinate so quickly. In all, about seven days and the first is breaking through the soil.

There's something lurking just below the surface

 

 

Somewhat as an experiment, I scooped some seeds out of one of the more expensive variety of vine tomatoes, dried them on a paper towel and then sowed them a few days later.  I am absolutely overjoyed to see so much activity in such short time.  To date, I have around a dozen seedlings.

Vivacious vine tomatoes - no holding back

Due to the explosion of vine tomatoes seedlings, my next venture were the seeds of an almost spent Bell Pepper that was lurking in the fridge. I'd read that the more riper the pepper the better chances of success. I am still waiting to see if they germinate, and if they do prove fruitful it goes to show that you need not look any further than your kitchen to find things to grow.
 
My trusted companion, the Pepper kitty, didn't seem so impressed.  I think she would have preferred if I'd invested my time and energy in chickens.

Look into my eyes...Chickens

 

GARDEN: The Garden Summerhouse Project ~ Part 6 ~ Finishing

Plenty of Light

Bifold doors

Partially open

Fully open

A year later, and the Summerhouse is finished - well almost, as the path still needs to be paved and the outside area, landscaped, levelled and grassed.  

I love the design.  A shed or cabin would have been too dark inside as the light mainly comes in from the side.  This perfect solution of part greenhouse, part shed, is ideal as a studio. The shelves were made from salvage wood & inexpensive IKEA wood brackets.  In order not to drill into, or put any pressure on the timber structure a rail has been mounted across the back wall and everything is hung there on butcher's hooks.    The lighting, a combination of a work pendant light and festoons, are all solar.

Best of all, the bifold doors open out fully so you can still experience the garden, the fresh air, the birdsong, the sunshine, and the mosquito bites.  The great outdoors.

Half greenhouse, half shed

 

Hung by hooks

The succulents & cacti love it!

GARDEN: The Garden Summerhouse Project ~ Part 5 ~ The Build

As outside projects go, this one was frustrating.  What should have been a straight forward two day build stretched out into several weeks due to the bank holiday showers and then the general change in weather.  Ironic, after the excellent and consistent sunny summer.

These pictures were taken over several weeks as the summerhouse went up in stages:-

Three part floor.

The foundation was pre-made in three parts that just needed to be joined.

Up it goes

The next stage was screwing the panels to the floor and to each other. The panels are made of Redwood tongue & groove.  The windows are made from Liteglaze acrylic sheet which is 8 times stronger than glass and is covered with protective covering which can be peeled off.

Four walls and the door opening

All that lifting, crouching, bending, holding was quite strenuous on the back so out came the inversion table. You hook your ankles to it and flip yourself over until you are hanging like a bat. It releases all the tension in your vertebrae of the spine.

Without a roof

The apex is now up and if you look closely you'll see that the bi-fold doors are hung but pinned back.  A main part of the attraction to this particular summerhouse design was the front opens out and lets in a lot of air and light.  I very much wanted to retain the fact of being outdoors.  It's also not very clear in the photograph but the front sides panels are also transparent. 

On goes the roof and roofing felt.

The plywood roof at only 9mm felt a bit flimsy, but did suprisingly manage to take my weight (with the use of addition support) in order for me to felt the roof.

Finished roof

An industrial camera tri-pod stacked with wood was also used to support the roof while I was on it.

Shutting up shop

This is the finish build before painting, with the bi-fold doors closed.  The white dots are wood filler on the knots and some of the indents made with the nail gun during construction.

There is still a great deal of work to be done with installing door handles & locks, the guttering, roof facias, and several coats of paint to protect it from the elements during winter.   More to follow in the next few weeks.
  

GARDEN: The Garden Summerhouse Project ~ Part 4 ~ The Big Day

Today is the big day that the Summerhouse was delivered.

After 18 months of planning; cutting a shed; moving a shed; mixing countless bags of sand and cement to concrete a sub base; then buying another shed; the replacing and repairing the boundarys; and finally laying slabs to level the foundation, we finally got there.


Recapping in pictures what has been going on:-

The second shed in situ between the trees.

Laying the slabs

Using the slabs to level the base.  Note the rebar mesh that was against the fence has now been sandwiched between to keep it all together.  The foundation dimensions were 16 feet across by 12 feet deep.  Things were made a lot easier with the hire of a concrete mixer and the luck of having good weather so the job was completed in about three days.

Looking like a dance floor

A little bit of tree surgery was required as the three birches have a tendency to shed a fair amount of leaf fall (see first picture).  I can already foresee the sweeping of the Summerhouse roof happening at the end of every Autumn.  While I was tempting to have the trees chopped down, the other alternative was to lessen the load by removing as many branches as possible.  It was also with the intention of sweeping any debris to the side to decompose, that earth trenches were left at either side.

Thinning the Birches

  

Finally ready to build.

 I still have a few plans: I have several boxes of white tiles from the previous owner in the shed that could be smashed up to make a Barcelona-like broken tile mosaic trim for the front of the base.  The Summerhouse has partial glass sides so I'd like to reposition that large trellis panel and plant and train a honeysuckle so that there is something nice to look out on instead of the fence panels.

In the next few days the Summerhouse will go up.  Watch this space!  

GARDEN: The Garden Shed Project ~ Part 3

What a disgrace!  I seem to forget that I have a blog to update!  

So continuing from May to October, this is what went on... like a DIY telenovela.

Chopped up shed in situ - Mid May

My recollection of this summer past is one of making endless buckets of concrete as the sub-floor foundation was poured in sections over many dry weekends. While is why it took so long because the English summer is generally unpredictable.  Since the ground was relatively uneven, some parts were 8 inches thick while others around 4 inches.  However, it was a great opportunity to smash up and throw in all the discarded broken bricks, slabs, rubble, stones and any other aggregate I could get my hands on...

Replacing a fence panel - Sept

Overall the space across is around 20ft approx and a depth of around 9ft.  I've left around 1.5ft of earth on the sides and back for leaf decomposition; falling leaves from the silver birches; as well as rain run off - it was to drain somewhere.

Patchwork of concrete

So what we have now is a rough sub-floor. The next step will be to lay down the metal rebar mesh which is to the right side, against the fence of the first photo, and sandwich it between paving slabs.  It will be during the laying of the slabs that the floor will be levelled.  

Finished sub-floor

 
Basic grey utility slabs waiting until next summer to be laid as there just wasn't enough time this year.  If you look closely at the picture above you'll see the Pepper Kitty surveying the space between two birches. That's about 4ft wide but we'll come back to that.

Slabs

Since the Summerhouse will sit a few feet in front of the shed and trees, it did get me thinking about the space between the trees.  Why not put a second shed for additional storage in there?  It won't be possible after the Summerhouse is built so enter shed number two...

Not a toilet! Shed #2 - Oct

 
After measuring the space, it was decided that a 4ft x 3ft Sentry style shed could be crammed in there...just.

Bad Photoshopped mock up

At the moment the second shed is sitting in the middle of the floor until I can concrete and level the area between the trees but that's going to have to wait until next year.

 

GARDEN: The Garden Shed Project ~ Part 2

The new pimped up and painted shed now looks like this:-

Window less & Cornered

After removing the concrete corrugated roof it was time to push & shove it into position.

In situ

If you look past the junk; old shelving, wood fencing,and other rubbish, you can see that there is now a nice large space to put in the Summerhouse.  The depth of the mini shed was determined by the silver birch on the right - leaving a walkway behind the Summerhouse to store pots and accommodate the compost bin, between trees.

Foundation

 Using all the broken paving, bricks and other bits of stone as ballast, a foundation can be poured - like the one on the right.  Once that is done the whole thing can be levelled even by laying basic concrete paving slabs. You can buy these from most builders merchants for less than £3 for square foot and a half coverage.

The Shed

 The little outhouse is now ready to store the lawn mower, garden tools, plant food, paint cans, and any other unsightly stuff.

Finishing touches

And hopefully by the end of Summer there will be one of these...

 

GARDEN: The Garden Shed Project ~ Part 1

Spring arrived early this year and it is great to be pottering around the garden in April in weather that we'd normally get in May. 

The bigger picture for this Summer's garden project involves the dream of a big Summerhouse stretched across the back, providing additional space as a workshop, studio or just a super shed that can be filled with accumulated junk.

But before that can even happen a few things need to be moved around - like the existing shed.

The shed as it was

The plan is to magic it to a size that sits in the far corner between the line of Silver Birches that flank the boundary. Surprisingly, when clearing out the back area I discovered that there was already foundation of sorts buried under 6 inches of dirt; the built up of falling leaves from the trees, decomposing over the years and making excellent compost. 

The designated shed space & old paving

Poured concrete foundation

Like a magic trick, the shed was sawn in half and put back together again. 

Look closely and you can see the saw

You can see the new concrete base behind the shed

The back panel is moved forward

The discarded timber recycled to cover the old windows and replace any split slats.  

Windows gone

The new mini-shed still needs finishing but is beginning to resemble an old fashioned outhouse!    My trusted assistant, Pepper Kitty checks to see that the neighbours aren't watching...

View from the back

The base now needs to be sawn and the shed finished with corners, repainted, etc. Without the roof it should be a two man lift to get it into its new position... to come in part 2.

There is still plenty of space inside for the lawn mower, pressure washer, shovels, rakes and garden tools.  

Plenty of years left in the old thing

Part 2 coming soon...