Signs of Life

27 - 28 February 2020

Signs of life in the water lilies - hurrah!  Dave keeps saying 'be patient', but I'm worried we may have killed them by washing all their soil out, and then planting in water too deep for them.

 This is the best water lily - most are showing new growth: little maroon leaves, but this one is reaching for the sky!

 While the marginal calla lily now has two pure white blooms.

These cabbages are the ones from the old kitchen salad bed.  The one that has had a new stone wall built around it to make it a knee-high raised bed.  We were wondering if we could wait till these matured before putting the rest of the soil spoil heap into the bed, but they are moving too slowly, so we have tried relocating them. Dave doesn't hold out much hope that they will survive.

Finally, on Friday 28th, we had a day full of rain.  We took the opportunity to do some errands in Lefkas Town, then returned after lunch, lit the fire and settled down to listen to the pitter-pat of rain falling into our water storage facilities.  Hurrah!

Drawing Plans Again

25 -26 February 2020

Work continues at full speed.  So much to do, so much getting done.

 Dave takes a grinder and file to the rebar that sticks out past the front of the structure

 We move one of the tanks to level it up, and a temporary bit of pipe falls in.  Dave fishes around for it with the net and manages to retrieve it.

 In the absence of the workforce, we get a chance to work in the corner immediately outside the music room door.  Next to the wall is a channel that was clean gravel, with a perforated pipe in the ditch to collect rainwater spilling over the gutters and carry it away from the house.  We don't want this channel to be paved over, or filled with sand.  So we established a boundary, wide enough for a path, dug out weeds and dirty gravel, then made a gulley for the blue water pipe.  After the area is paved, we can put in clean gravel and bring it up to level with the pavers.

Around now, I developed a little twinge at my waist, probably from all the digging and lifting and barrowing, and had to slow down a bit.

 Meanwhile, in the shed - the mushroom bale has produced a second sprouting, and once again we have a feast of mushrooms coming daily.

 When Constantine the architect came to measure the house for the final permit application, he suggested we include any other structures we want to build.  So we measured up for a car-port, which will variously: protect the car; allow us to relocate the old solar panels off the 'zone' structure, to free up another bit of garden; and give us a roof at the top of the land to collect even more rainwater that can gravity-feed the south front beds.  All good things.

 We have quite a few self-seeded borage plants currently in flower in the hugel beds, which they seem to like enormously.  I was walking past this one when I was struck by how incredible it looked from above - so I stopped to take a photo.

The workforce are back - nice line parallel with the walls outside the music room.

Structures taking shape

23 - 24 February 2020

Work - and play - in the garden continues ...

 The pavers have reached the southern edge, and have been finished with a wonderful egg-shaped curve running from the wiggly bed to the Solarium - made of found edges, rather than cut and shaped, which creates sharp sides.  The Maistro really is a maistro!

 Dave and I continued work on the 'rebar' (reinforcing rods) structure over and around the tanks by the bank.  Twelve uprights for the twelve vines to grow up (we hope).  We will get bamboo covers to lay on the top until the vines grow up.  This is to shade and protect the water and the barrels from the sun.

 The wild lands of the garden are currently awash with anemones, clustering pinkly and staring at the sun. 

 Possibly a rash decision: a warm evening after a hard day, relaxing with Dave's home-made ginger beer by the pond.  The first bottle wasn't particularly rash, but this is Dave bringing the second bottle ... Oh dear!

 The next day, we were a little the worse for wear, and I was happy to sit amongst the stone chips gently scrobbling them up into the barrow.

But I did manage to finish off the rough stone steps down the bank under the washing line.  Dave was busy finishing off the overflow piping into the bank tanks.

Garden Update 2

22 February 2020

Another day of planting and arranging in the garden.

 First thing was the paving arrived at the foot of the decking stairs, but the workforce had to take cover from some rain.  While drinking coffee on the cathedral windowsill they noticed the water butt off the Solarium roof overflowing, and asked why we didn't pipe it down to the new storage tanks?  I don't know why we hadn't already thought of this, but we leapt into action to get a pipe in before the pavers covered the route.

Overflow pipe rushed into position - luckily we had enough leftover pieces to get the critical bit laid so paving work could continue.

 'Landi' hard at work shovelling sand.  

The vast amount of stone chips left by the deliveries and stone shaping in the foreground (and to the right, and out of sight in the background ...) are a nuisance.  Many are sharp as knives and I don't want them loose around the land.  

The solution is to put them into the 'landfill' area under the washing line, which is being levelled up to the little brick wall.  The workforce were going to do this, but they are too busy and their time too precious, so we have taken it on.  The least back-breaking way to do this involves sitting on the ground and picking up the pieces by hand and throwing them into the barrow.  A spade just hits a stone and jars your back!  It's going to be a long job.

 The first black iris we've seen this year.  In the long grass by the lavender seat.

 This is the top of the dry-stoned bank, before the outer edge of the wiggly raised bed.  I asked for it to be left clear for planting, and I have now put in alternating nasturtiums and prostrate rosemary.  Hopefully they will grow down over the bank.

 Something I did with a few of the larger stone-chips.  

I saw this on an ecological garden designer's site: sidhillecogardens.com (his are bigger and better than my first attempt).  It is a little dry stone cairn which is placed in a sheltered spot as a habitat for various garden critters.  It has a nice architectural quality as well as encouraging beneficial insects.  We shall have a few dotted around once we know how much stone needs to be used up.

This is the end of the washing line area - it was just plunging over the bank, which meant the stone chips wouldn't stay in place, so I used the last of the big stones to make rough steps down the bank.

Garden Update 1

19 -21 February 2020

In amongst all the 'hard landscaping' we've been doing, there has also been a bit of planting of seedlings and seeds in the newly constructed terrace beds south of the house.

 The 'wiggly' bed to the east has also been filled with soil and is now ready for a manure mulch and salad plantings

 Our raised beds of refugee topsoil are doing exceptionally well.  This is the turnip crop - heavily over-sown, so we are cropping it for salad leaves to thin out.

 Inside the micro polytunnel, the Moringa is doing incredibly well.  Very exciting.  It seems this is the way to go to keep them alive over winter - cut short and wrap up well.  

 Dave demonstrates one of our baby turnips, ready to saute' for lunch, with Moringa polytunnel in the background.

 And hurrah!  Well before expected, a white lily appears in the pond.

 A birthday present from a thoughtful friend - a Cordyline plant for architectural interest around the pond.

Prepping the next terrace bed up the slope.  Now the wiggly bed has been filled, there is enough space around the spoil heap to finish building this one.

Birthday Breather

14 - 18 February 2020

It has all been so intense recently that we decided to give ourselves a break.  We had errands in Lefkas Town on Friday, it was my birthday on Monday and we were expecting our architect to come to make final drawings on Tuesday, so we called off the workforce and took a long weekend holiday.

 The first sign that we haven't killed all the pond plants - one lily is putting out a new leaf

 A sad day on Saturday - we woke up to a dead chicken.  Not a scratch on her, so we don't know what caused it.  She had a pretty good life though.  Thank you for all the eggs, chicken.

 My birthday gift from the pond - the leaf unfurls!

 We went for a walk by the sea at Vasiliki.  It was such a beautiful day (58 today!)

Constantine came as planned on Tuesday, and we galloped round the house taking measurements.  We have to submit an 'As Built' plan which highlights all the places we have diverged from the permit.  We then pay a fine and hopefully they sign the house off as finished.  We diverged from the plan quite considerably, due to the plan not really taking into account the wood frame structure.  In the end, we are very happy with how it has turned out, so we'll pay the fine.  We are slipping an application for a car-port into the plans too.

More water storage

9 - 11 February 2020

Just as the house is starting to look lovely from below the pond - clear blue skies, reflections in the water and all that - our order of six more huge black water storage tanks arrives, and spoils the view completely!

 From this ...

... to this.  Even the weather went monochrome!

 The ultimate plan is for these to be largely invisible.  The first stage of which is to plant twelve red wine vines along the front.  Cleverly, just before Dave started the plumbing.  These will take the overflow from the monster tanks behind the house and from the little water butt at the Solarium.

 The next stage is to paint them with a coat of the off-white we've used all over the house.  It won't stay on particularly well, but it is worth doing to protect from sun exposure as well as blending better with their surroundings.  One of those jobs that need rock music and a can of beer to get through before dusk!

 A little less oppressive after painting.

 Meanwhile, some of the soil spoil heap is relocated into the 'wiggly' bed.

 The Solarium gets a little mock stem wall to match the house (and the water butt breeze-blocks are camouflaged)

 Lime plaster on the barbeque structure helps it settle into the landscape.  Still needs metal trays and a sink top.

 While Dave and I discover that 'pond-gazing' is a thing; and we tend to do it a lot, especially at the end of a busy day.

Building the Barbeque and Landscaping the Pond

4 - 7 February 2020

With the Workforce hard at work around the house and Dave and I labouring at the pond, there are so many things happening.  It is exhilarating and exhausting all at once!

 Repairs are done to the lower step that I made too narrow.  With a little supporting front and new 'plaka' laid on top, it is much better now.  Laid in lime mortar, so the chair is there to stop use for a week or so.

 Our one concession to speed: a little slab of concrete to build an outdoor kitchen on. We've been told that the workforce have more important jobs than ours to do after mid Feb, so the pressure is on ...

 Pond-wrangling continues.  With a little rainfall and some hosepiping, the water level is where we want it.  Which means that the little island by the 'beach' is submerged.  So I had to paddle in to lay one more stone to bring it clear of the water.  Hoping that birds will use it for drinking.

 Brick structure starts on the outdoor kitchen/barbeque.

 We are scouring the land for 'sticks and stones' that will look awesome round the pond.  Finding some good ones tucked away in hedges and corners.

 Base units built