WHAT ARE WE DOING IN THE GARDEN TODAY 2023

Yesterday haven't had time for much in the garden, but i did a bit of watering then it rained and took delivery of 4 bags of compost from b & q. It was £6.00 for delivery, a lot better than the local garden centre that charged £15 and then had to go there to pay it. Don't usually have it delivered but hubby is recovering from hip replacement surgery.

 

Hi,

Well done Logan, £6 for delivery is very fair considering the drivers time and fuel costs; I have lots of items delivered I'd normally have collected myself; it's increasingly scary here in Huddersfield just driving the car with traffic calming destroying suspension and endless speed cameras; Huddersfield council are also closing roads making them cycle or buses only; we never ever go into town it's not worth the risk; the ring road is as near as I want to be.

Good luck to your hubby; I hope he makes a speedy recovery and I know from others who have had hip replacements it's totally transformed their life for the better.

Yesterday evening I enjoyed a wander around with the camera;


Front garden in all its glory.

Rear garden left side recently rotavated to get rid of masses of weeds.

Top wildflower meadow now it's fifth year coming along nicely.


Pathway to right of top meadow.

It sure is steep; the Cerastium (Snow in summer) I managed to retain having very recently dug up 8 huge tree stumps and roots to create a new middle wildflower meadow which is now showing lots of promise.


I've felled and removed over 30 huge trees during our 36 years here the rear garden was like a mini park and the trees so tall they became a liability during high wind. We still have three big mature trees including two oaks.

I've reduced the area of grass to mostly pathways and have just scrapped the heavy petrol mower here I've just used the strimmer.

Fingers crossed the weather this year doesn't destroy the meadows.


A couple of nights ago having had another busy hard day I settled down at 7pm and immediately started to fall asleep; time is precious so I wandered into the kitchen and baked this caraway seed cake; I've not had one of these cakes for over 50 years; these were always a rare treat when we were kids. 8pm I did settle down and watched a YouTube movie with my wife bringing us up to bedtime.

Kind regards, Colin.

 

Hi,

What a lovely transformation Wiseowl; very well done.

Kind regards, Colin.

 

Hi,

Thanks for your suggestion Loofah; years ago a former next door neighbour built a four bed roomed detached house at the top of the mountain; they then sold the bungalow next door they lived in together with the newly built house and moved to Cypress; they built a new house in Cypress but because someone had the audacity to build very near they sold up and moved back to the UK actually to the detached bungalow at the end of the street.

The owner of this bungalow one day visited me whilst I was in the workshop an old gentleman whom my wife and I liked a lot; he was at the point of crying; this pair had been trying to get his bungalow for a great deal less than it was worth; the gentleman's son became became involved but they did get the bungalow in the end and sadly the old gentleman passed away.

Now the husbands sister sold her house and they all moved in together; after yet another huge makeover they sold again by which time the sister had been in care and passed away; still with me ; good.

This pair then bought a detached house just around the corner from the bungalow and again pulled it apart; a few months ago they applied for planning permission to demolish their double garage and build a deep small detached house it being on a steep slope with not much more area than occupied by the double garage; amazingly they eventually obtained planning permission which amazed us.

Returning home from shopping on Monday our lady friend who lives directly across from this pair was jogging as I pulled up alongside her and she brought me up to date.

This greedy lying avaricious greedy couple have now decided not to go ahead with the build; it's already cost them £30,000 in legal fees but now they are faced with a £15,000 bill to build retaining walls because half this proposed tiny house would be in the slope.

They lived next door to us when we moved in 36 years ago and although my wife and I live and let live just one word GOODY.

We've recently received two letters from a company located in Huddersfield Town suggesting it would be to our mutual interest to let them take charge from planning to building a new detached home at the top of our garden; they must think we're stupid. The top of our garden should we convert it ourselves is worth a great deal of money; it's absolutely beautiful up there with even better panoramic views across the valley than our detached bungalow enjoys.

We don't need the money and we certainly don't want neighbours overlooking us.We've always lived well within our means and now both of us in retirement we are fully content with our lives indulging each other in our respective hobbies.

We were brought up in real poverty to the point my parents coal mining cottage didn't even have electricity until I was about five years of age; 70 years ago all around us were equally poor and we could leave our door unlocked day and night; no burglars we had nothing of value.

I think poverty these days is income less than £26,000 they don't understand what our poverty was like but strangely all those years ago wives remained home with kids whilst husbands went out to work and life in spite of the dire conditions was much more friendly than it is now; the more money people have the more miserable they appear.

Just a story from someone who's lived it.

Our bungalow is already too big as are the gardens for the two of us; we could build an extension to the side but maintenance to the bungalow and gardens already takes a great deal of my time.

Kind regards, Colin.

 

I planted up 5 of the hanging baskets with a 3 plant combination I got with my son this morning. "Romance" I'll let the photos doing the talking now (well, they do say a picture is worth a 1,000 words! )
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Thank you Colin and the cake looks yummy.

 

Wonderful weather

After a long walk and a lovely lunch I nearly fell asleep but the weather lured me outdoors. A lot of small jobs got done, the last spare-of-the-spares Ipomoea (the "free seeds with every issue- kind that I grew in case I messed the Sweet peas up) went in to find its way through the conifer I'm allergic to.

Everything got watered and in lack of anything pressing to do I dug out the trusted skateboard and trimmed the lawn edge with scissors. Whilst at it, I also dug up any lawn weeds.

Hand weeding is very therapeutic and you get to keep the winnings The Degus love dandelion roots so it's always a small victory to pull one up whole. I then hang the dandies on the washing line to dry and crisp up, the Degus and the neighbours appreciate that very much.

"Must be part of their culture" was murmured heavily when our washing line filled up with dandelions

Oh, and the Veronicas (my Nana insisted on calling any blue flowered weed Veronica because it's a pretty name) are now on the dining table.

 

Not much today its been a beautiful sunny day though, watering in the GH main chore . I did pop to the Garden Centre and saved a Carex Ice dance from the sale section , 5L plant for £1.99 the full price was £21.99 anyone paying that much for a common simple plant deserves parting from their money. So brought the carex home and attacked it chopped it into 5-6 pieces, potted some up and plant the other near a pittosporum tom thumb and added some ophiopogon black grass with them , the carex replaces my Lomandra white sands 1 dead and the other just showing signs of life so potted up for now.

 

Finished planting the 21 tomato plants and tied them in. I sowed some lettuce and carrot seeds in between.

 

Hi,

This morning played the violin enjoying it being warm without looking at the heating bill; then I washed and leathered the car dry bringing me up to dinnertime.

After dinner I wandered up the mountain of our rear garden and started weeding; we've got couch grass which I rotavated a couple of weeks ago now it's showing its face again; ten minutes into weeding I thought I've had enough of this fun pulling tops of the couch grass so brought in the heavy artillery. I fueled the rotavator and have given the couch grass a really bad time; it doesn't like being rotavated to 4" deep.

I enjoyed doing the rotavating because the rotavator had suffered damage to its tines so I made heavy duty tines from plate steel and wanted to see how good they were; they proved to be brilliant and rotavating was much quicker and a lot more effective than just pulling the top off the grass by hand; when the couch grass pops its head up again I'll torment it more until it gets fed up.

I've also just enjoyed another violin practice.

Beautiful sunny day. There's no better place to be than in Yorkshire on days like this pity they are so rare.

Kind regards, Colin