On The Cover Again!

On the cover of Woodcarving magazine for the third time! This time with a lovely picture of my boy doing some carving with me. He was pleased to see his picture there. 

This issue of woodcarving magazine I also write the opening letter for the issue (always a fun bit), I got to interview am amazing carver from America called Bob Yorburg, and I carved up some vegetable fridge magnets (more about them in another post).  

Outdoor Tomatoes

Ever since leaving our last house, I've never really grown good tomatoes outside. 

That house had a suntrap garden, with white brick walls I used to grow them up against. They'd often do better there than in the greenhouse (which was a little shaded).

This year I thought I'd have another go outside here, having failed in the past. I planted two types, one Primabella, is a late blight resistant tomato that I you can save the seed from. The other is Crimson Crush, also blight resistant but an F1 (so no seed saving) and also not the most tasty tomato you will ever eat, but still streets above the supermarket ones. 

Longest Season Plums - My Plan Is Working

My plan with any fruits that I like and that grow easily here is to try and have the longest season possible of fresh fruit.  

Now this can be done in a few ways. I can take advantage of any micro climates my plot offers, so taking advantage of suntraps like sunny walls or places under glass. The other is with variety. 

It' really with variety that I've doubled down on. I've been slowly collecting and planting as many varieties as possible with apples, pears, plums and damsons. All grow really well here and all have so many interesting types. 

What I really look out for when building my collection is the earliest to crop and the latest to crop. For me this is most important in the plum harvest. Plums just taste the best when fresh off the tree, and yes we preserve lots each year, but that fresh harvest really takes some beating. 

The earliest I've put in is Herman, but that is yet to fruit here. Then I have quite a few more early plums, with opal being trained against my shipping container to try and ripen them even sooner (although again no fruit yet). 

Victoria was the first to fruit this year, although it is also the oldest fruit tree I have planted here. It fruited so heavy a big branch snapped off it and ruined the harvest. 

As the Victoria's went over the Marjories seedling kicked in. I'd be tempted to say it's be a better plum than the Victoria, although the fruit clings to the stone. Funny that this one was next as the place I got it from said it would be ready the end of September - and they're going over now. 

Some other plums just coming ready now down int he orchard and the Merryweather Damson is at it's peak - these are almost a plum rather than a damson. Smaller than a plum, but the fruit is free stone, so it's really easy to prepare for cooking and making preserves, we normally dry some each year. 

I'm looking froward to a year all my plum trees fruit and then I can really see how long a season I've managed to create for fresh plums. So far so good though. Looks like I have a few weeks left yet! 

Homegrown Peaches

The middle of last month I forgot to share one of our best harvests. 

This little box of peaches!

They were incredible, grown in the polytunnel and hand pollinated with a brush by my Middlests and me. We were going on holiday in Wales for a week, so rather than miss them I harvested them to take with us. 

Sweet, juicy and an amazing treat. My neighbour (now into his 80s) was telling me how the "big house" here used to grow them in the one glasshouse, and how 'd always be given some, and how he could never to give into temptation of just taking one. 

Having a tree like this down one end of the polytunnel seems like a good use of space, a taller crop, with roots that must extend down below where I'm watering other crops. 

Who else grows peaches? 

August Abundance - Tour Of the Homestead

 Last week the weather turned nice so I thought I'd get out and do a tour of the smallholding. 

As per usual the garden isn't looking great, but the fruit and everything else is. I filmed me walking round and during the whole thing I'm finding things to eat! 

I just love this time of year! Such abundance everywhere.

What's your best crop at the moment?

Seed Packets

With the seed swap I help at each year in Hereford, my talks, where I give packets of seeds rather than a business card and the items I sell, that each have a free packet of seeds with them, I end up giving away a few thousand packets of seeds each year. 

This is such a big thing for me that I have to plan the garden accordingly. I want plenty of seeds and of things people want. for me the ones that seem most popular are the packets of tomato seeds. You only need a few in each packet so it works out really well for me, and I love growing new varieties each year to give away. 

From Waste To Wonder - Scraps

 Okay, to conclude my series on my business "waste" is the last bit - the bits that are truly unusable. This can be for many reasons, split, knots (dead knots fall out), too small to work safely. the list goes on. I try to keep it to a minimum, and being a one man band I know the amount of wood that gets to this point is really small. 

But I've loaded us up with enough kindling to last a year (and I tell everyone here to burn a lot of it when starting a fire) and our elderly neighbours have politely asked me to stop bringing it to them. 

Instead, I'll see if I can sell it in bags locally. 

From Waste To Wonder - Bird Feeders

 As a carpenter of 20 plus years I can assure you I never aspired to make bird feeders. Nor did I ever think I could compete with cheaply made ones made in the third world. 

But the same with the scoops, when making things, this time with reclaimed pine, I end up with lots of small bits. The tree put some sort of effort into growing that, so I think it's only fair I try to use it all. 

That's where these bird feeders come in. Not only do they use the small bits of pine, they also use up the small strips of mesh I end up with when making my baskets. 

Hopefully what I've created is an eco friendly product that helps nature and at £9.50 is still fairly affordable for a present. 

From Waste To Wonder - Scoops

 There is something incredibly satisfying, even after 20 plus years of being a carpenter, of taking a pile of wood and turning it into something. 

Of course when you make things every day you end up with a lot of offcuts. I don't like waste, it hurts my pocket and it hurts the environment. There's a lot of energy gone into making all these materials that I make my income from. 

So I have a habit of saving up all the regular sized offcuts and putting them to one side. This works well with my potting trays that produce a strip of ply waste and sometimes the 9x1 redwood boards are split and unusable for them. 

Newsletter

Just a quick blog post to remind everyone that I'm doing a newsletter each month at the moment. I've been putting it in with every order and I've had some really nice feedback. 

I also have an email list, so if you'd like to be added use the sign up link by clicking here. 

I'm only sending it out once a month (so if you sign up now you probably won't get an email until September). It looks at jobs to do in the coming month, a recipe and then a nice look back at all the things that have happened over the previous month, all with some good pictures. 

I might run the occasional competition or special offer in there as well, and maybe, if I get brave enough, share some of my creative writing! 

Thanks as always. 

Victoria Plums!

One of my favourite harvests is at it's absolute peak this week - The Victoria plums. 

Supermarket plums from warmer climbs are such a disappointment, they're like a whole different fruit. These fresh from the tree (or local shop) are a different thing all together. Sweet and delicious flesh and so far the grub count inside them has been low (not saying I haven't eaten a maggot so far this summer, but if I have I haven't noticed). 

This tree is 13 years old and this is the first really heavy crop I've had from it. Unfortunately a little too heavy and one branch has snapped, reducing our harvest by quite some amount. Still enough to pick some fresh every day and stuff our faces. 

I know the space for fruit trees is a luxury, but fruit trees pay back so much from their initial cost if you can put them in. This was a £5 supermarket tree, it owes me nothing! 

Have different plums ripening elsewhere as well! 

What's your favourite plum to grow?

 

Hive Inspection- My Young Beekeepers Learning The Ropes

 My girls are keen to expand our bee keeping operation, they have their sites set on using it to help make their pocket money rather than a Saturday job (although people are already asking them about baby sitting and cooking). 

So my plan with the bees is to make sure theyre trained up as much as i am. If we can do inspections quickly, with the three of us looking we could have more hives and more possibilities for them. 

This week was a fairly simple inspection but it's great to look through both hives and get a feel for what the bees are doing. 

I'm really pleased with how they're taking to it, it really reminds me of how I was with sheep growing up. And their young eyes really help when having a look for different problems. 

The video is more for my own record as I record this journey, but hopefully makes for interesting watching. 

Camp Out In the Field

 A few Sundays ago I suggested we should have a camp out in the field. Unplanned, it made it quite fun for the children. 

The kids set up both tents and the fire, I topped a small patch first. 

The only tent we own is one from before we had children (maybe before we got married to be honest. I didn't fancy buying some just to use a couple of nights a year, so instead we borrowed the ones from scouts. 

Dehydrated Cherries

The week before last we got invited to our friends farm again and got to gleam the end of their cherry harvest again. 

This is such a great opportunity and it gives us so many options when it comes to preserving them.

Most years we can loads, but we still have a fair few in the pantry, so this year we decided to freeze the lions share and dehydrate the rest. 

Alviti Rescue

One of the things in my life that makes everything easier is having such good friends and family around me. I'm truly blessed in that respect.

Us Alviti's are a tight knit pack, and look after each other. We also have friends who we treat like family. Yesterday, one of those friends broke down and the breakdown company were being terrible. It was going to be nearly midnight before they got picked up. So a quick phone call to my dad (who never seems to stop), he got a trailer there, and we got her car on it, swapped the trailer onto my truck. Then drove it back to our village and to the garage. And got Sarah back home (she backed the car off the trailer rather bravely!)

Wasn't what I was intending to do that evening, but these guys would do anything for us and have done many times in the past.

They were the ones we rang when my wife went into labour (the second two times) to look after the other children, or when I broke my jaw they were the first we rang for help. Or when our daughter got diagnosed with type one diabetes they learnt about it and helped support us. Or when the only toilet broke and my wife was heavily pregnant and I couldn't fix it on my own!

Vertical Router Table

As I've mentioned before I really like having dedicated stations in my workshop for different operations. It means I don't have to spend time setting each machine. 

A while ago I build a small router table that I use just for rounding over, this gets used multiple times a week and makes life that much easier.

One job I end up doing is trying to smooth over the tops of my scoop handles. I make a range of different scoops and making them all in batches when I do the ends of the handles it's hard on my hands to hold them while sanding them. I thought a jig on the router table might work well. Then I thought that another router table just for this job would be better. 

Small routers aren't much money (about £100), so I got one, a No Volt Release Switch and a new plate to fit in the table. It didn't take too long to knock up a router table for it. 

This one is mounted vertically to save on bench space, and I'm already loving it. In essence it's an electric pencil sharpener. You drop the dowel in, turn it around and the end gets rounded over evenly. Really simple but makes a boring task a little quicker and the end result even better. 

I know some think it's dedicant to have multiples of the same tool, but with what I do time is money, so the more I save the more likely I am to make a living. 

I made a full video on how I made it up above, so give it a watch and let me know what you think. 

Thinning Fruit

There is a phrase about how you should get your enemy's to thin your fruit.

But mine are busy, so I have to do my own. 

It's been interesting this year seeing a new area become heavily fruitful for the first time. When I used to graft a few apple trees (something I need to get back into) I put some trees down in the coppice.

This year they've cropped really well. In fact they've cropped just too well. I waited for the June drop, but it just never happened, so last week I took to knocking some fruit off the trees. It always feels wrong, but I know it's for the greater good. 

I love being able to have different areas for fruit growing, all with different microclimates and quirks. These seem to have faired much better this year with being a bit of open light and air, unlike the orchard which is tucked away a little bit. 

Lovely to see these trees to start coming into their own. Hopefully this should help fill the pantry for winter if they get to ripen. 

Who else as thinned fruit this year?

Dehydrated Blackcurrants

One of my absolute favourite preserved items lately has been the super intensely favoured dried blackcurrants. 

These have the unique blackcurrant flavour but condensed down. We use them each year in baking now, they've become a store cupboard ingredient rather than using sultanas or raisins. 

They take an age to dry though. Probably nearly two days in the dehydrator. The video above shows the process I went through. Cleaning them is often the hardest bit, but I discovered I could winnow them once dry, using an old bouncy castle fan I own. It worked well and blew out all the bits we didn't really want to store. 

Do you dehydrate blackcurrants? 

What's your favourite store cupboard ingredient you make yourself?

 

A Few New Tools

As I go deeper and deeper into making small batches of my products I'm always looking for ways to either speed up the process or to make it easier on myself. 

One thing I spend a lot of time doing is sanding. I tend to use two orbital sanders for this and in all honesty it can be a little tough on my hands. I'm either holding the sander or holding the wood. 

So I had a think about how I could improve this process. I knew a bench mounted disc sander would be the right answer, as well as a bobbin sander for all the curves I cut on my work. 

First Hive Inspection With Both Daughters

Last weekend we had a break in the weather and decided to quickly get outside and do an inspection on our two hives. 

I was keen to make sure the bees had settled into each hive from the two swarms we caught last year. 

The girls were really keen to come and help (the boy not so much). So they donned their suits and came with me. 

Have a watch of the video to see how they get on. 

It was a really lovely thing to share with them. Both very enthusiastic and really keen to learn. 

Adjustable Sloe/Berry Scoop

So today I came across someone who had a carbon copy of my gooseberry scoop on Instagram. That I'm not too worried about, it was going to happen and they're not selling them. The bit that annoyed me was the fact they denied that it was a copy, saying they saw something on holiday last year, but could show me no pictures. I only asked for  tag in the video so people could find me. I understand that people will make their own, I'm fine with it, but say where you got the idea rather than passing it off as your own. 

There are also 2 3D printed designs out there that very closely resemble my design. They have given the plans away for free, so they don't really benefit from it much.

I'm tempted to make a video showing how to make mine, as people that will, will do it anyway, maybe making the design have a creative commons licence, so I can still build them but morally others shouldn't do it for profit. Not sure, willing to take advice. I doubt a patent is worth it, and it'll probably only cause me headaches and paperwork in the long run. 

Anyway, on that note I thought I'd share the prototype for an adjustable berry scoop, with sloes in mind really. By sharing it here I know people can copy it, but at least the original idea is mine. I had considered it when making the other scoops, but it takes longer to build and is heavier.

Young Beekeeper - Collecting Swarms With Middlest

 So last week I collected two swarms on my own. Well I say on my own, but I actually had some help...

 

I had a phone call in the middle of the day from Lesley who got me my first swarm (which unfortunately didn't stick around). She said there was another swarm in the church yard, she was away so I should get it! 

Getting My First Bees

 So the last few weeks have been a bit wild for me. I don't think I've actually sat down in the last three weeks! 

My business has been really crazy, which is awesome. I've been trying to make as much as I can to make sure no one is disappointed. The other thing that's been filling my time is a bit of beekeeping. Not just from the training course every week, but I've also got some of my own bees now! 

So with a knock at the door it all properly began for me! 

The video explains it better than I'll probably write it so give it a watch. Hopefully makes for some good viewing!

Let me know what you think. 

2 Magazine Articles This Month

 I'm not very good at posting all the articles I write on here, and I should do it each month. 

I've jut had the two regular ones I write for published (while currently writing two more), it's always great to seem them on paper, especially as they take a fair bit of effort to get out into the world (not just mine). 

The first is in Woodworking Crafts magazine, it's my three bay "rat Proof" composter. 

I've loved using this compost bin, although I must admit that I've not done as much gardening as I should have the last month as work wise I've been ridiculously busy. 

The second is...

Secondhand Beekeeping Equipment - Maybe I got carried away...

 So last week I ended up assembling a flat pack hive I bought really rather rapidly (more on that in another post and video). then I ordered a second cedar hive (that has also had some action today, but again more on that another time). I then saw a post on Whatsapp that in the village one beekeeper was selling up.

It was a guy I knew so I gave him a ring to see what he had for sale. I then, maybe, got a little carried away...

Hedgehog Rescue

So late on an evening last week my time was taken up with this little dude. Found on the road covered (and I mean covered) in maggot eggs, in his eyes, nose, ears, all between his spikes.

But he had a bit of life left in him. So I spent two hours picking off every single egg I could find, bathed him, got some fluids into him and gave him some food. The maggot eggs were even under his eye lids, luckily none had started to hatch. Reminded me very much of flystrike with sheep.
Good job my hands are tough as he was understandably spiky.
He went from near dead and lifeless when we found him, to snuffling around the box we'd put him in (on top of another box with a hot water bottle in for a bit of extra heat) once I'd done my bit. I was surprised how lively he was this morning.

Once he survived the night I managed to get him off to some specialist care. News is he's doing fine and eating lots now.
Cute little guy to be fair.

*no doubt I'm going to get criticism for not taking him somewhere the first night, but tried numerous numbers and couldn't get through to anyone, nearest place was an hour away, so just did the best I could.

Readyy Steady Cook! But For Scouts

 I can't take any credit for last nights scout session - but it was good fun.

The scouts were given a selection of ingredients, then split into their troops to make whatever they fancied. 

It was fun to see what they created. A few of the scouts really impressed me with how quickly they could make some very tasty food. It was fairly obvious which ones cook at home, they just had a feel for it even though they were cooking over an open flame. 

Going Viral On Instagram - 3.3 Million Views!

 So my short, 7 second clip, on Instagram went a little viral. I mentioned it before when talking about my gooseberry scoops. Since then it's just built momentum. 3.3million views so far and counting...

This has meant that I've sold lots of gooseberry scoops. As many as I could make really, which has been great as often June can be a pretty quiet month as far as sales are concerned. Although I'm not sure how many more I have left in me this week!

The Most Important Bit Of Beekeeping Equipment

So along with the beekeeping trainings course I've been going to every week, I've also been slowly acquiring what we need to actually keep bees. 

I've ordered a hive that I need to assemble (I'll also be making some), a smoker and feeder. But I've also got the most important thing - 

 

Some bee suits for the children. They're keen to get involved and I'm keen to have them help me. So I thought it should be one of the first things we got. That way if we do stumble upon a swam we'll be able to gather it up and give it a home. 

Both girls seem really keen with the beekeeping, the boy not so much! But it will be up to them if they get involved. The girls seem to have the idea of using any wax for making wax wraps to sell (which will go alongside what I do really nicely), and hopefully they'll come up with some other projects as well. 

Hopefully I'll get to assemble my hive soon, it's been a busy couple of weeks with orders and talks, but hopefully I'll get to do some smallholding jobs the next few days and this may be one of them. I think the children might like to assemble the hive with me as well. 
 

A Trip To Wales

Over half term we popped to Wales for a few days break. Always nice to get away as a family. 

 

Gooseberry Harvest Scoops

As you know I'm always making or tinkering with something, and my berry harvester I made last year is no exception. It was great for berries and currants, but for gooseberries the extra fingers were a little pointless.

So I decided to start designing it again, but like I'd never seen a normal berry harvester. 

So I went to the workshop with some design criteria and started making....

1Rat Proof 3-Bay Compost Bin

I've wanted some good compost bins ever since I ripped out my last lot that were rotting away. 

The last two years I've just made piles and let them rot down. Yes, you do get compost, but it's messy and not ideal. 

So this time I've decided to go all out. Meet my three bay, rat proof, compost bin. 

Curing Meat

 It's been a while since I've cured any meat. But now my wife and children seem to have sandwiches most days (and me) I want them to have the best lunch boxes possible. We already bake all our own bread, 4 loaves of sourdough for breakfast each week and about 28 rolls for lunch, but I get fed up with buying little packets of meat, with far too much plastic, cut far too thinly. 

I decided it was time to up my game. 

Cycling Scout Camp

It's fair to say that since joining Scouts some 7 or 8 years ago it has become a constant in our lives. I help out in all sections when I can and I'm now moving from Beavers to Scouts (more on that in another post). 

This weekend just gone we had a scout camp. It was for their expedition badge. So they had to plan a route using their bikes from the scout hut to the local scout camp (which is 14 acres and an incredible space). 

Although my Middlest isn't quite old enough to be a scout, she's on the cusp of joining properly and as I'm a leader I said that if I was to come she should as well. Turned out to be a really good thing as my girls were the only girls out of the scouts so they could share a tent (especially important with the eldest's diabetes).

I didn't bike the ten miles. Instead I drove my truck with all their bags. We only had 9 scouts sleeping over, with 4 leaders it made for a really nice time. The truck was great as well as otherwise we would have had to carry stuff a long way! 

Tour of the coppice in May

Another video this week! A quick little tour of the coppice and I get to test out my new chipper! 

 As always let me know what you think. What would you do with this area? 

May Garden And Orchard Tour

So a little wonder around the garden. It's the usual mixed bag, some things are looking good and others aren't!  

Slugs and rabbits have been my biggest enemies this year, although trying to get more infrastructure up and running has slowed me down as well! 

So I filmed a little walk around video, going through the beds. I hope to get some more in fairly soon and get everything planted out that I've got as seedlings, May always seems so busy, fairly sure I could do just the garden and smallholding and still not have enough time! 

Give the video a watch and let me know what you think. How far on are your crops in comparison?

Second-Hand Greenhouse Build - Part 3 - The Bed!

I finished this a few weeks ago, but it's great to have the video to go with it. The second greenhouse is all ready to go and planted up. 

 In the end I built the beds out of some beams I had had left over from building my brother's porch five years ago. 

Beekeeping Lessons

 Last Thursday was the perfect evening for a beekeeping lesson. The day had been warm and sunny and the evening felt long, a perfect spring evening. 

The lesson started with them letting a captured swam "walk" up to their new hive. They shook out the skep and let the bees walk up a board into a national hive. It happened in a matter of minutes. apparently once the queen goes up they all follow. 

Putting Up A Second Hand Greenhouse

Although my "new" greenhouse has been up and running for a week or more now, I finally got around to putting the video together. 

 Hopefully this is a fun video showing me putting up the frame and glazing it.

5 Guinea Fowl Eggs

 I have a few smallholding friends who live locally. One of them is the head of a local private school that has a little smallholding attached. He's been great in getting a mini farm going for the children there (I wish every child could be so lucky), along with a polytunnel and veg garden. 

Last week he was going to borrow a broody hen from me to hatch out some guinea fowl eggs, but in the end he only managed to collect five eggs, so decided it probably wasn't worth moving the hen. I aid I'd give it a go here anyway. 

Super Early Cucumber!

 I love trying to get a super early crop of some of the veggies we grow and love. This year I thought I'd try and go for early cucumbers. The children are in love with the mini cucs you can buy from the supermarket. I'll get them as treats sometimes and they love them for their afternoon snack or to put in their lunchboxes. 

So I built a planter for... our bedroom! My wife is very understanding! If you read this blog much you've probably already worked that out to be fair!

Saw Horses In Massachusetts!

 I got a couple of messages on my YouTube channel the other day, one from Brasil and one from Franklin Massachusetts. Both said they'd built the saw horses in the video I made in September 2022. 

It really made my day. I was lucky as well as John, who made them in Franklin, also sent me some pictures of them in use! 

Make Some Pigeon Holes For Extra Space

We're always struggling for storage space, too much stuff is probably the reason in all honesty. And we do try to chip away at it, and reduce how much we buy as well. 

But our porch isn't really big enough for the five of us, it was as big as I was allowed to build, but it is still a squeeze with all the coats and shoes (so many shoes). I decided a little extra vertical space would help so made a set of pigeon holes. 

As is my way now I filmed the process, and the plans have been in Woodworking Crafts magazine. 

 

It was a fun, fairly simple project to make using reclaimed boards and some spare plywood. It's been in use for a few months now and has been a great success. 

Has it tided up the porch at all? No, but at least I can find my stuff now! 

Could you do with some storage like this?

3 Course dinner Cooked By The Children

My wife was a way the weekend just gone, but me and the children still had a lovely time. We went to a friends for a fish and chip supper on Friday night, had a lovely sunny day outside on Saturday and Sunday we went swimming with friends and had a picnic in the park afterwards.  

On the Saturday the children were messing about making some fun fake food, when I suggested that if they liked they could plan a meal for when their mum got home, I said I wanted three courses! They jumped at the chance and grabbed some pens and paper to make a menu. 

They settled on Italian, I told them that before we go swimming we could pop to the shops and get anything extra they needed. The starter was fairly straight forward (above) and had everything they love! 

Trio Of Carved Toolboxes

 I've written a lot of magazine articles now, well over a hundred, and very occasionally I might hear back from someone who has read one. 

One of my first articles in Woodcarving magazine was about making a carved tool box for my daughters 9th birthday, this was a few years back now, so it was lovely to hear from Gordon in Ireland who had read my article and decided to make one.

He has now made three of them! I think the his use of colour on them is amazing! Talk about making  a project your own. 

April Homestead Tour

 I love this time of year. It's been a challenging spring so far (I know we're not even very far into it yet either!), but the sun was shining so I decided it was the perfect opportunity to go for a walk around the smallholding and have a look at what we've got going on. 

In this walk around you can see our downed oak tree as well as the garden ramping up production, everything is looking very green and lush, but we're still having lots of cold nights, so don't be fooled and get too much going too early! 

Let me know what you think (I'd love for you to leave a comment on YouTube as well if you would - helps loads! Even just a thumbs up is a big thing on that platform). 

Thanks for watching!

Stored Apples In April

Although we still have some good, tasty apples left in the store we have started buying some the last few weeks. 

The stored ones just don't travel well now and as four of the five of us go off every day and need to take lunch the apples look very bruised an unappetising by the time it's lunch! 

so although I'm eating ours from the (apple) store, the other's aren't. It's shame, I could do with growing some that travel a bit better at this age. The middlest still takes dried appple with her every day though. 

I think it might be worth stewing up some of these and dehydrating the better ones before they loose too much condition. I had a go through the other day and I think the mild weather has made a few of them start to turn. 

If you store apples how are yours looking this year?

 

Greenhouse Upgrade - Building The Base

 I've mentioned this before on the blog, but the little 8x6 greenhouse needed a bit of an upgrade this year. 

The base I put in some 12 years ago, it was just some 8x2 treated softwood I had left over from a job. It made a good temporary base and I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did. 

The little greenhouse started it all off in the garden when we first moved here, it wasn't long until I got the bigger greenhouse, but it's always been useful. It's just the last few years it's fallen on a bit of disrepair and missed out on the love, becoming a bit of a dumping ground. As the base rotted out I just used it less and less. 

Oak Tree Downed By The Wet

I was a bit broken hearted the other day. My daughter noticed the tree on our drive to school, it had gone over. 

This oak was always a little stunted, trying to grow out from the huge veteran alongside it. Always leaning over. 

Watering Can Plunge Tank (mini one)

 Much as I quite like a few moments by the rain barrel to let my watering can fill up, I've decided that I'm wasting too much time doing it. 

So I dragged a water trough from the bottom field up tot the barrels at the back of the shed. It was just the right height (with the addition of a few slabs) to go under the tap. 

Polytunnel Clean Up

The polytunnel has been a constant source of shame for me over the winter. Full of dead plants and a thick green slime on the plastic. 

I was desperate to get it back into tip top form this year, it's such an amazing space for growing I really need to be making the most of it. 

So I've been trying to tackle it in spare moments when I could. Not that many spare moments make themselves known however...