Feeling Chipper

31 March 2020

I like wood chipping.  It does two jobs in one: clears away brushwood from wherever we've heaped it up; and creates a useful commodity.  We have decided to mostly use woodchip on our paths, as it can be quite acidic for the veg beds.  On the paths, we still have the goodness from it rotting into the soil, and the plants in the beds can access it underground.

 Dave doing the chipping, while I roam the garden dragging up brushwood

We decided this batch of chips would go on the path by the pond, where there is still some black liner showing, as this would finish off the landscaping there.  On the way down with the barrow, one time, Dave spotted a flash of colour in a remote corner of the land, so we went to investigate.  We were very surprised to find an enormous iris happily blooming under a tree.  We didn't plant it!

 During a pond-gazing break, the cat came to join us, and seemed to notice the goldfish for the first time - oops!

 The cypress to the left of the car is getting to the stage where we need to bring it down or it will get too big for us.  So Dave moved the car (phew!) and did his lumberjack thing.  More stove fuel, and lots of sweetly resinous cypress chippings for the pond path.

 Man of action.

 Today the first radish was ready.  Ants were starting to measure it up, so I decided it was time to pick.  A very fine radish.

 I didn't take a 'before' photo, but the pale green pear tree was engulfed by broom and cypress.  It is the only mature fruiting tree we have, and in previous years we have neglected it due to the building work.  So I chopped back the broom and cypress and cleared space all around.  We will apply manure and hope it fruits again this year.

 The pond path very nearly finished on the near side.  The last bit of visible black liner is just behind the fork.  The path will turn brown very soon, and should look settled in at last.

 This is not very easy to see, but in this water lily pot there is another long tangled string of toadspawn.  At least three days old.  We can't think how we missed it.

  A long shot - the house, watertanks, hugel beds, new path and pond, all looking rather pretty (in my biased opinion!)

 Another surprise!  A fourth string of toadspawn, this time just by the beach, and new laid, possibly even this afternoon, while we were working.  We may have a plague of toads coming ... (look out, slugs !)

While on the beach, I discovered a whole new angle to photo the pond from.  

As our friend Malin said, 'pretty pondy'.

Filling the Heart Bed

30 March 2020

We have been moving soil from the spoil heap of earth in front of the house, round to the heart-shaped bed at the kitchen door.  It's been a long job, as the earth is clayey and sticks to whatever implement you try to move it with.  But finally, we got the job done.

 The heart bed, filled as full as we could manage of 'claggy' soil.

Dave hard at work shovelling.

All ready for our Art Group challenge - one drawing a day for 14 days.  Something to do at tea-breaks, so will keep sketchbook handy.

 A typical plate of salad leaves for lunch from the garden.  Up to six types of leaf: parsley, spinach, beetroot, young cabbage, kale, and 'selenos' a type of minature celery that I've only found in Greece. All very delicious and zinging with vitamins and minerals.

Top dressing: onto the soil we put a bag of manure, then a bag of shop-bought compost, and then several barrows of our own compost.  Just add seeds and water (and hope the mice and birds stay away!) and we should have a crop in here before long.

Indoor Activities

26 - 28 March 2020

The long-awaited day-long downpour finally arrived, filling our water storage almost to the top.  Hurrah!  Time to find things to do inside the house.

 I decided to sew some face masks from cotton scraps, just in case we need them, for whatever protection they can give.  Dave was a bit disturbed to find his had been lined with old underpants - very well laundered, I assured him.  Most of my fabric scraps are flowery, I thought he'd prefer navy blue.

 Dave and I took to peeling onions, as part of our pickling and preserving drive:

 sauerkraut, eggs and onions.

 Meanwhile, in the pond - Goldie the gold-tail is very pregnant, and was spotted resting between bouts of frantic chasing by the males.

 And our first tadpoles have reached a reasonable size.

 I spent a day painting a picture of our apricot blossom to put on a card to send to my pregnant daughter-in-law, but then found the Post Office so overwhelmed with packages to be distributed they refused to sell me a stamp!  'Go away till April' said the harassed solo postman.

This is our surprising 'perennial' cabbage.  It happened by accident.  The original cabbage was cut, and we left the root in to rot down in situ, but it didn't.  Instead, it has sprouted a number of little heads, none amounting to much, but the small leaves are lovely in a sweated, spiced greens recipe.

Dun gravellin'

25 March 2020

When we moved a piece of black plastic that we had been using to protect the paving while moving earth into the heart bed, a little whip snake flickered out and shot under one of the pavers.  So we delayed any more gravelling until the next day when we hoped it would have made its way to somewhere safer.

 Dave on one of the barrow-runs, leaving little deposits for me to sweep into the cracks.

 Finished at last!  A lovely level sweep of pavement under the washing line.  I've been waiting a long time for this.  Maybe I'll do some washing tomorrow.

 A nice edge along the top of the bank where I installed what I hope will be a flourishing aloe vera bed.  The aloes are finding it a bit chilly at the moment, and not looking well. 

 In the background is a series of giant-ish steps that I put in with left-over stones to stabilise the last remaining bit of the bank.  It definitely looks better like this, and allows us to use more of the washing line than before, too.

Not quite finished

22 - 24 March 2020

Much to our excitement, we found a whole new batch of toadspawn in the pond this morning - wrapped around one of the grasses.

 This batch seems a lot healthier than the first one, in which many of the little black spawns turned white and didn't hatch.  

 This is a self-seeded nectarine tree, which has come out in flowers very exuberantly this year.

 Two days of squeezing paint brushes into spaces they were never meant to fit, and with only four bars to go - we ran out of paint.

This was on the second day of Greek lockdown for Covid-19.  All hardware stores are now shut for the duration of the virus, so we will have this gap-toothed look for quite a while, it seems.

 After we 'finished' the gate, Dave came to the rescue with the plumbing, and the raised stones over the sink waste were re-seated and stabilised.  So now we can continue with the gravel shovelling, barrowing and sweeping.

 All done, bar the washing line path, but ...

 ... no reason not to enjoy a ginger beer in the sunshine, despite lockdown.

 With a chilly north east wind blowing, we found a new place to put a table and chairs, in the sheltered south west corner by the front door - where it is all newly gravelled and very smart.

The view of the veg beds from our cafe table.

Getting on with the Gate

18- 21 March 2020

Dave has been worried for some time that we ought to be protecting the new gates from rust, and so, with a few days of good weather forecast, he started the prep work.

 While he was treating the rust, I worked on the plumbing in the field kitchen.  Checking the fittings worked for the sinks - but not installing them, as we haven't made the worktop yet, the sink is just balanced there.

 But, crucially, we have to have this pipe in place before we can complete the gravelling, as seven large stones have to be moved to cut out a channel for it.  When I hit a point where I wanted Dave's plumbing expertise, I left this project and went to help with the gate.

Dave applying red protective undercoat to the not-so-fiddly bits of the gate - leaving the fiddly bits for me!

 This is a self-seeded broadleaf oak that has been growing mostly unnoticed near the pond.  We finally got round to trimming away the sprigs, and it is now starting to look quite a handsome tree.

 And another handsome tree - the Moringa that was over-wintered in a polythene cover.  We decided it was warm enough now to risk exposing it, and found lots of new growth.

 Putting the pale green top coat - my fiddly bits.

 The point at which Dave had completed his bits on the left hand gate, and I had done the fiddly bits on the right hand one - then we swapped over.

 Our first tadpoles appear - four days after the spawn showed up

 But the pond skaters seem very interested - not sure what they eat ...

Dave's Socially Distanced Birthday

16 - 17 March 2020

Under the new virus-beating rules, we are meant to keep between one and three metres from other people (depending on which country you are in).  This is a challenge on a birthday, but we followed the rules.

 Day before the birthday, the garden yielded up our first cauliflower - and what a beauty she is!

 Restocking the log store.  For the record, this is how long the first fill-up in November lasted.

 Just in case: four pots of chicken soup in the freezer.  If we both get ill at once, we will need sustaining broth easily to hand.

A real birthday present - the long-hoped for toadspawn appears overnight.  

Rather lovely, in sparkly birthday water!

  Lots of it, in a tangled web.

 I wonder why this happens: here are two spinach plants, that came from the same batch at the garden centre, and looked identical when planted.  However, the top one is now flourishing, and the lower one is stunted, yellow and miserable.  This is at the end of a row of flourishing spinach, so it is not proximity.  It can't be variations in the soil, surely?

To celebrate the birthday, we cycled to Robbie and Sue's new patch of land, about half a kilometre from us, and observed social distancing while sharing some ciders - and watched Robbie planting an hibiscus.