Deconstructing the 'Zone'

 26-28 Nov 2020

Way back in 2012, while we were living in the camper van, we found enough money to double our electric system.  At the time we had 3 panels on the shed roof and a fourpack of batteries.  We duplicated this, with slightly higher yield panels, but had no more room on the roof.  So Dave and his son, Rob, built an A frame to hold the three new panels.  With a footprint just over 2m square, I saw how useful this would be to make a little outdoor space that could be free of mosquitoes and flies.  So I stapled insect netting all over it and we put in some rugs and a sofa, and called it the 'No-Fly Zone'.  We sat out most evenings there, with dinner on our laps and a movie on the computer.

It is now quite battered, and at risk of collapsing towards the house, so Dave disconnected the panels and started deconstruction.

The lowest panel taken off, but the frame needs to be collapsed to reach the others.

That worked!  Nobody and nothing hurt.

Panels off.  Chainsawing the rest into pieces.  The screws have corroded in place and won't come out.

Another bootleg bbq - with fire pit as the evenings are finally turning a little chilly

Stacking the rescued wood.

Lots of wood to rescue or dispose of.  We had used the bottom of the A frame to store the excess decking wood that we have, so all that needed moving up the slope a bit to a new location.  Then all the cut pieces of the zone had to be barrowed to the bonfire pit.

The new view - looks much better, especially with our fabulous tumbling rosemary bush in the foreground.

Across the slope, above the drystone wall, I dug out a quick trench before the storms due on Sunday, to catch a bit of water and soak it into the earth.  On Monday we plan to buy a couple of Mulberry trees to go on this site.  Mulberries are great summer shade trees that allow the winter sun through when they drop their leaves.  This is the west of the house, so it gets hot afternoon sun, and we have long wanted to plant Mulberries here to shade the bedroom and bathroom windows.

Compost therapy

 19 - 25 November 2020

The weather is turning into a drought.  We are having to water the garden.  In November!  

Daisies are running rampant in the garden. looking very lovely.

Dave resting between straw-strewing activities.

This straw has spent two weeks in the chicken enclosure, being scrabbled and pecked about to get rid of seeds and add a few 'nutrients'.  We are using it on the mostly dormant veg beds as a winter dressing.

Maybe it is the unseasonally warm weather, but we are having a late rash of cabbage white caterpillars.  They are on everything - hundreds of them.  I wish the butterflies all the best, but we are losing all our kale, so Dave is taking them off when he can.  The chickens refuse to eat them.

We hear that at last the boat has been hauled into a yard for the winter, so Dave loads a ladder on the car and goes to make sure all is well.

I tackle the compost, which hasn't had any attention for a while.  This bin is full of stalks which need chopping up.

So I used the hedge trimmer on them.  This worked quite well, cutting them down to two-inch chunks so they'll rot down faster.

After the chopping - I moved the heap into the left-hand bed, which can be covered, and left to brood.

Our little nettle plants, just surviving the occasional wellie boot on the head.

Underneath all three beds - some fabulous soil, which I gathered into the newly empty right-hand bed, for distribution into the wiggly and heart beds.

Our Friends and Other Animals

 15 - 18 Nov 2020

We were invited to a bootleg barbeque, and tootled along, not expecting much, although we then wobbled home on our bicycles much later than we expected.  Second lockdown started a couple of weeks ago, so it was nice to meet a few people outdoors.

On our way in, we saw a large toad in the light of the bicycle lamp.  I wonder if it is a home-grown one from the pond?

The third of the on-contour ditches is just about finished, hurrah!  My back is feeling it rather.

Dave did the pickaxing for the new trees and a chronic problem in his wrist kicked off, so he's been in charge of planting.

And straw distribution.

This bottom ditch is a main thoroughfare as well, so it had to be wide enough for a barrow, and has been freshly cardboarded to keep the grass down.

Both beds fully strawed up now.  Dave at the far end, planting beans as fast as I can prep the beds.

The return bootleg bbq, in which Robbie meets Inky and Dapple and falls in love.

Everything Rosy

 5 - 14 November 2020

The weather is unseasonably glorious, unlikely things are blooming, and we are getting a very lot of work done in the garden.

We are planting broad beans through the straw everywhere we can.  Even if we don't use them as a crop, they are an excellent soil improver, fixing nitrogen in their leaves and roots.  If we decide not to leave them to crop, we cut and drop the plants at flowering time.

Dave hammering a stake for one of our four new trees - we decided to put two proper apples in the beds where lots of apple seedlings have come up self-seeded from compost.  It seems to be an indicator that they will like it there.  There is also a big Robinia shading this area to help keep them cool in summer.

The other two new trees - a pear in the foreground, and almost directly behind it is a plum, in the new forest garden beds, where there are still two ditches to dig out.

The second ditch underway, with chicken help.  I flooded this one to try to soften the earth a bit to make it easier, but it mostly just made it muddy.

The mystery plants that are flourishing in the heart bed are, according to Google Lens, chia plants.  I do remember throwing out a packet of seeds bought for consumption that I'd had a long time.  Clearly they were still viable.  Very beautiful.

Everything in the garden is rosy, especially the roses, which are going crazy.

The top forest bed, with ditches above and below - covered in straw.

All the citrus have also been cleared, and specifically not manured, as I read recently that they don't like it.  So they get compost instead.  We'll see if it means they start fruiting properly.  This orange tree has produced two fruit - one of them a proper size (and just visible at the lower right side, still yellowy green)

A Moringa leaf salad - with delicate saffron stamens from the crocuses in the garden.

Extra help

 3 - 4 November 2020

Naomi was determined to come and spend a day helping us in the garden before she and Pete returned to the UK.  So we arranged Wednesday.  Along the way, two people we had met at Kostas' and Aris' workshops asked if they could come too, and one wanted to bring a friend.  More the merrier we said, expecting to get no work done at all.

The day before, 3 Nov, we decided it would be good to put the glass back in the Solarium, to warm the house for the evenings.  We still haven't had to light the stove, it's been so warm.

I started work on digging on-contour ditches between the beds of the proposed forest garden - to be used as paths, but also to catch rainwater in the soil rather than running over the top washing it away.

We have two useful working chickens - Inky, the black-tinged white, and Dapple, the russet.  The other three turn out to be useless, as they panic so much when we try to carry them to the enclosure, and even worse when we want to put them away - they won't follow us, and they flutter so madly they get out and run into dangerous fox areas.

So only Inky and Dapple are on the strength, and they are very useful, if a bit focused on sticking heads in between the fork tines just as I'm trying to stamp down.  

Wednesday dawned, everyone turned up, and after admiring the house a bit, everyone was keen to get doing.  Two with bad backs took on the seed sorting that has needed doing for some time.  Dave and Pete volunteered for the pond-watching detail.

While Naomi, 

Sally-Ann and I blasted through the Moringa beds - doing a quick and dirty weed chopping, manure raking and straw spreading job, just to get the earth covered up.

After lunch - a good job well done.

Visiting the Farm

 1 Nov 2020

We are off on an adventure.  With Amanda and Naomi, Dave and I drove to Kostas' farm near Pelargia, opposite Lefkada on the mainland.  We and the other members of his gardening class were invited for a field trip.  It was brilliant.

Kostas shows his climbers, on wire netting.

Sweet potato beds, that have finished for the year - well mulched with straw to build soil over the winter, and with broad beans planted.

An interesting vine, called a Chayote - from South America.  It produces edible veg like a cross between a cucumber and a pear.  Even the small ones are edible, so we all tried one.  This is something we're going to try to get.

All Kostas' trees were mulched with cardboard, as young trees don't like being overwhelmed with grass.

This is a native a bit like a myrtle, which I have seen growing but I don't think we have.  Kostas recommended it for mulching anywhere you have couch grass to get rid of.

Demonstrating the scythe.  Dave muttered that he wasn't going to give up the strimmer, so maybe we won't get one.

These are homemade seed balls - in which seeds vulnerable to birds and mice are rolled into little clay cases.   Then they can be scattered and will only germinate when there is rain.  An idea from 'The One Straw Revolution' by Masanoba Fukuoka.

Kostas shows the seedball making machine that a friend put together for him.  You can make them by hand but this is quicker.

Chickens at Work

 31 October 2020

Work in the garden proceeds.  We have constructed the sides of a raised bed for the vines.  It seems we planted them too shallowly, so we thought that if we raised the soil level around them it might help.  We can fill the bed with rotted manure to improve the soil too.

The vine bed constructed (decking planks and rebar hammered into the ground)

The apple beds freshly weeded. (Once upon a time these were 'hugel' beds, but the mound of dead wood and leaves has now settled down to slightly raised heaps, in which several self-seeded apple saplings have appeared.)

Our mobile tea-station, huddled in the shade near wherever we are working.

In front of the water tanks - a refreshed Elder bed, with manure applied.

The vine bed - with manure

The auxiliary workforce.  We set up chicken netting around the area of proposed forest garden beds, and brought in the best scrabblers for the job.  We can watch them while drinking tea.