WHAT JOBS ARE WE DOING IN THE GARDEN TODAY - 2017

Weve got a klargester which is a bit like a soakaway/septic tank and it has been a nightmare. We are thinking a cess pit would be better but again costs alot of money but might be cheaper than fonsistent maintenance of a klargester.

 

Today, I ave been mostly sieving compost

 

Finished sieving and turned over last years heap





Time for drinkin, smokin and lobbin bottles now

 

Had lunch in the garden and sat drinking in the hot tub for the rest of the afternoon

 

. Sounds as if you have had a bit of a nightmare Shiney with your cesspool. I think we have a Septic tank, a brick built chamber with an overflow and clay pipe leading to a soakaway ditch. Tank was emptied in January at a cost of £160. Guy who emptied it said we left it too long to empty and waste had seeped into overflow. We had been checking the tank level and thought it was ok. He did say tank was working ok, not blocked and that the best thing we could do would be to add a dead sheep or dead dog to the tank .

More digging today uncovered 4 clay pipes, which we traced back to being waste from toilets, household water and two rainwater pipes. All water pipes appear to be working correctly but not sure about waste pipe. A hosepipe placed into the overflow runs through the overflow/ pipe and empties into ditch, but we did not see any water seeping out of the septic tank into the overflow. Doesn't mean its not working though as don't know how frequently water from the tank drains. We looked into the tank and I was surprised the water level was so high. There was also waste floating on the top . Only the waste goes into tank, the other water is carried straight to soakaway ditch.The level in the tank is above the overflow pipe, so I'm not sure what that means. I understood that the waste falls to the bottom of the tank and gradually pushes water level up to reach the overflow pipe. As the level is now above that and contains floating waste I'm concerned that waste is getting into the overflow again.

I read online about Soakaway Worms and I'm thinking about trying these. They come with a bag of fertilizer ( which does the same job as the sheep or dog ). Have you tried them by any chance??

 

Probably repeated a million times across the UK today but done nothing today, ..................apart from dusted off the patio table and chairs, cleaned the barbq, Mrs Intel cut the grass whilst I supervised, finally sat down at about 2pm, had some dips and then cooked chicken marinated in Nando's lemon and herb, all washed down with beer and some wine perfect afternoon with the family lovely weather in Kent today got to about 25.c

 

Planted 8 of geum mrs bradshaw and 12 armeria that id grown from plugs in october. Gave all recent additions to the border a watering as well as the lotty. Been round and tidied up spent hyacinths and daffs. Also collected some rhubarb and spring onions. Ordered more plants online with an unexpected belated birthday present!

 

Beheaded a trillion sycamore seedlings under the tree and beyond where my hens used to reside,covered with weed suppressent while i work out which plants and shrubs will make it a nice seating and BBQ area in the evening sun

 

Now this sounded like my ideal evening zig until....

I read snorkys post xx

 

Spent 5 hours in garden. Put two coats of paint on a section of the wall separating back and side gardens and two coats on capping stones along entire length of wall as they looked a bit ratty. Set up the mini pond. Potted up a small Hibiscus I bought few weeks back ( its meant to go into the ground but nowhere to put it at present ). Started shovelling more black, stinky gloop and then stopped as realised its a pointless exercise. Wondering what a chemical analysis would reveal .

 

Planted loads of pots of spent bulbs in the border outside the garden wall and planted out 12 aquilegia, 4 dornicium that had been in my cold frame. Got my fiskars xact weeding tool out and removed loads of weeds from the grassy areas around the outside of our garden. 12 alchemilla mollis and 6 Echinacea plugs arrived so potted them up to grow bigger. Fed all rhodos/azalea and skimmia with rhodo plant feed.

 

Just spent the morning working on digging out my second veg bed. I have now removed about 2 cubic metres of sand (which passes as soil in that part of the garden). Today's effort was moving 12 40l trugs full of "soil" out of the hole, and putting 8 sacks of fairly young horse-manure in the bottom, covering the first square metre with about 30cm of manure. Then topped off with some compost/soil mix, that I had been growing my soft fruit in. The plan I should to clear another cubic metre of sand, and then build my veg bed "sandwich".
30 cm of horse-manure, 10-15 cm compost/soil mix, one compost bay of semi-rotted compost (will be about 30cm deep, I reckon), then topped with the contents of the fully rotted compost bay (about 20cm deep). I will need to return to the local stables and get a lot more horse-manure though!
I hope to get this all done by the end of the Easter weekend - planning to rope in some hubby muscle-power. Then I can board the sides, and set up a cloche to start warming up the soil. I have some spinach, lettuce and mangetout peas all desperate to escape the plant nursery aka spare bedroom!

 

Feeling crappy and not doing anything in the garden today. Covered in an awful rash which i can only assume is an allergy to something I've touched in the garden. Boo hoo.

 

You not been touching Hogweed have you?