Small Garden Project

Crikey, you have worked hard. Bravo!

Yup, mixing in stable manure is a very worthwhile job, so go for it

 

Picked up scaffolding planks on Friday (thanks @Linz !) and started painting them over the weekend. Now waiting on the dry weather to return so I can finish the job! They'll go round the edges of the lawn and then I'll finally be able to level out the beds and shift the hens over to their permanent home.

What I actually do with the lawn is another matter. Originally I was planning on tolerating the mess for this year then reseeding it and starting afresh come autumn. But (a) walking on the seeded area to reach the hens would be unavoidable and (b) it turns out turf is a lot cheaper than I thought, epecially for my tiny 10 square meters...so that's something to think about!



(Cat is supervisor-in-chief for the project).

 

Aw nice one! Liking the black paint too Turf would be the easy way out, don't blame you!

 

An amateur newbie here so can't offer much advice - but you've done so much already - and it's going to be lovely!!

 

Hello all,

Sorry for the long absence, things fell on the back-burner a bit during February. My cat was knocked down on the road at the start of the month; she and I spent a lot of time together in both this garden and my last one, and it really knocked the wind out of everything. And then the rain, and the rain, and the rain...

But the evenings are getting longer and I've had good luck with the weather on my last few days off. So, progress in the last couple of weeks:

Excavated the surprise patio in the near corner; turns out it's pretty much the most consistantly sunny part of the garden, and the perfect size for a coldframe.



Next big job was bordering the flowerbeds. This was made far easier by dint of an ex-American football playing, weight-lifter friend who is easily bribed with cake and the promise he can use the mallet.







Originally the coldframe was going to sit against the redbrick wall, so I extended the patio to meet it with some of the many, many loose bricks there are lying around.



And then, finally, the hens were relocated! This felt like a huge moment; partly because moving their run out of the middle opened up the space a lot more than expected, but also because this whole project started when I realised that the only space for them when we moved in was slap-bang in the middle of the lawn and rendered the whole garden pretty much unusable. So mission finally acomplished!



Meanwhile the spare room was turned into a temporary greenhouse.



Coldframe (Christmas present from parents) arrived, painted and constructed.



And, finally, this week I collected several times my own body weight in rotted horse manure and top soil (thanks, gumtree freebies) and spread it over the beds (usefully muscled friend sadly unavailable for this venture; I regretted it this morning).





Please ignore the very sad-looking "lawn"!

 

It's coming on well. With most of the lawn gone it won't take long to dig it over and re-seed or turf.

 

Hi 2nd_bassoon,

I have only just come across this thread. You have made great progress on the garden, lots of hard work gone in there. Just a thought from me regarding chickens.

It looks as though the concrete on the right hand side is still in place? You could put chooks there with wood chip on the floor, this would then make it easy to clean out, just sweep up and compost. Also no predators or vermin could dig into run after chickens or food. You would then free up the space where they are currently for more plants.

The sad looking lawn as you call it is quite easy to sort with some grass seed, but if you let the chickens out in the garden I presume that it would not last long anyway.

Love the cold frame as well.

Rusty

 

Thanks My plan is to turf the lawn - I've worked out the finances and for such a small area there's only a few pounds in it between turf and seed. I'm hoping to tackle it in the next few weeks and have it usuable for the summer, which I think would be pushing it for seed - not to mention the wrong time of year, I think?

@rustyroots, I had exactly the same thought process with where to put the chickens, and both points you make were big pluses for having them on the concrete. It was ruled out in the end for two reasons - (1) it's only about half the length of their run and the ground beyond is very uneven, so getting it all to sit level would have been quite tricky, and (2) a bit sillier, but there's a toddler in the flat above us who loves watching them out his bedroom window, which has a better view of the left side of the garden than the right!

It's a shame really because it does mean the hens are in the spot that gets the best and most consistent sunlight through the day at the moment, but there we go. The concrete area isn't going to waste, I've got containers on there now for carrots and potatoes, and the tomatoes will join them once things warm up a bit.

 

I have a week off work this week, and so of course it has been raining pretty much non-stop since I woke up this morning. On the plus side, we celebrated the loosening of the AI restrictions by bringing in some new friends.

 

Today I started to tackle the pond - ran a hosepipe in to refill it and see how much water it will naturally hold. It drained back down to the oiginal level very quickly so I'm assuming there's a pretty big leak in the lining somewhere. While hunting for the leak I made a new friend:



(S)he appears to be living in the undergrowth around the edge of the pond. I've replaced the stone she was underneath but I'm now a bit stuck. When would be the best time to address the pond to cause her least disturbance? My plan with it is to remove all the rocks around the edging, repair whatever damage is causing the leak, and then replace everything and plant the whole area with small moisture-loving plants - so hopefully the end result will continue to be a nice home for her. But I don't want to cause too much alarm in the meantime! Is there a time of year that is better/worse for disturbing them? Reptiles have never been my strong point!

 

A lot of hard work you have done there Bassoon, looks good! Love the cold frame and the new chickens. If the slow worm is still there when you next go to sort the pond out I'd just move it to the back corner under some leaves (away from chooks and cat) or even put it in a box with air holes, if it did home there by the pond I'm sure it'll move back. If I see them, I normally try to hide them from the cats

 

Glorious weekend after a rainy week off - and now other half has a week off with sun forecast for at least the next few days, grumble grumble...

But made use of it anyway! Hen's also enjoyed the sunshine:



Trip to B&Q for kitchen door handles went slightly off course and I now have actual plants. The rest of this stretch will be seeded with something low-lying and spreading so that the hens don't get shut out.



The area adjacent to their house will need something a little more hard wearing - as you can see from the top picture, that is their route from the run to the rest of the garden. They'll only have intermittant access to the garden - too many foxes and cats about for complete free roaming - but when they do they'll trample that area. I've been eyeing up heather's recently so may try one of them; chickens can't be as bad as sheep!

All the pots I had in my old patio garden have been sitting neglected by the back door since they were unloaded last November. The sun really highlighted the grime and weeds So a bit of time with a trowel and a tub of soapy water and they're all ready for this year's occupants



A few of the pots still had the remains of last years plants in them - I know a few were definitely perennial alpines but can't for the life of me remember what sorts. Between the slugs in my old damp garden and a winter of neglect they were all looking very sorry for themselves anyway, so I've repotted them into bigger plastic pots to see what pulls through and can be replanted elsewhere. (And also potted my dahlias with one very nervous eye on the weather forecast...)



This morning I've bordered the last lawn edge, at the bottom end. It's lower than the rest so I didn't want to use the scaffolding boards; came across a large pile of bricks in one corner that worked perfectly instead.


And finally made a start on the last two big jobs. Following @Mowerman's advice, and with hens safely shut away, I've applied weedkiller to the grass/weed/mud mixture currently pretending to be a lawn. Top soil and turf will follow in a couple of weeks - maybe a job for Easter weekend.

The pond, meanwhile, has been filled and emptied twice in an attempt to solve the mystery of where the water was going but I *think* I've cracked it. Here's how it stood yesterday afternoon:



Grimey, full of leaves, and with the water level having returned to it's usual point despite filling it completely on Thursday. So I bailed it out and started clearing the edges (slowly, but no sign of slow worm friend today) to try and find out what was leaking:



As far as I can tell, when the it was made the pond liner was folded badly to fit the hole and pretty much concreted to the surronding wall. Over time the liner has, I assume, pulled away from the concrete in places and drooped down, so water tracks down the folds and out. I've freed up the edges of the liner and I'm hoping that by building up the sides underneath with earth I'll be able to refill properly and hide the remaining liner with rocks. As a bonus that should also give me more space for planting around the edges - there's a clump of water lilies in the deepest point of the pond but otherwise there was just ivy and weeds around it. So any thoughts on planting in and around a small pond much appreciated!

Phew. Will try not to do such lengthy updates in future...

 

You've worked hard 2nd_bassoon and your garden's gradually taking shape. I know absolutely nothing about ponds, so sorry I can't help you with that.

 

Frustrated this evening - went to a local aquatic shop for advice on the puddle and had a good chat with the very helpful guy there (also oogled some £250 koi...bit of a squeeze, perhaps). He gave me some stuff for sorting the leaks in the liner which I have duly applied...and the damn thing still leaks down to exactly the same level as before. I've been over it with a fine toothcomb and cannot for the life of me figure out where it's going. I think it's a case of replacing the liner if I want it to be functional as a pond, which I'm a bit torn (pun not intentional) on - it's an expense I didn't anticipate or forsee. And, much as I'm hoping to stay here a couple of years at least, it is a rented property.

Alternative would be to embrace the leak and turn it into a bog garden; I've been looking at pictures and they do seem lovely... But the idea of fresh water with a little trickling fountain is a hard one to let go of. Argh.

 

So the leak must be at the line of where the water drops to then. If it's a slow leak then it will be difficult to find and I can't think of anything that would help to find it. With the edges pulling away is it possible to get the liner out, then you'll be able to see where daylight is showing through?