Snow!

First Snow of the winter!

AT LAST!

The Drainage Board has been! Came back from town today to find the little bit of the dyke that I hadn't done had been completely cut and the bottom of the whole dyke had been scooped out. Nice - a clean slate to keep completely free now. However, they have left a lot of the scoopings along the top of the dyke on the road side. I may have to use this for my compost heap!

In other news, I got an early Christmas present the other day. A garden shredder/chipper. Having done all the pruning last week I needed some way of reducing it down to mulch for the borders. 10-15 barrowloads of prunant became just enough to mulch 3-4 metres of border, but saved quite a bit in ornamental bark for the purpose.

Built a redimentary compost system out of the chicken coup's dividing fence. Will need to gradually build up the sides over the next year or two as I landscape the back part of the garden. Drawn out some sketches of ideas of how I'd like the back of the garden to look. After some thought I decided that I wanted more than just an extension of flat lawn. After all, Lincolnshire is flat enough.

Autumn

Definitely starting to see the effects of Autumn now. The reddened leaves of the little ash by the veranda have nearly all fallen, the back lawn is peppered with the minute sheddings of the wysteria, lawn growth has reduced to a near standstill and it's getting colder. The leaves on all the silver birches have just turned a light yellow colour and my wife's car was iced up yesterday for the first time... the latter being a little early I think. The few rabbits that I do see now are donning their winter coats and therefore appear much larger and there is a lot more scuffling under the veranda as little mammals bed down for the winter... and as a result, one of our dogs is showing a lot more interest. I guess I really have to harvest the turnips and radishes, the latter have grown to the size of large American apples and are probably too tough to eat - but the proof as they say is in the eating.

I'm going to wait until most of the leaves have fallen before I do pruning. I'm going to keep all the trimmings in a pile separate to the compost heap until such time as I can rent/buy a garden shredder.

Bought a cordless cylinder mower a few weeks ago, blades ran backwards originally but with a little help from my Dad, we got it working properly. It was a DC motor so all we had to do was reverse the polarity (i.e. swap the wires over) on the motor. It does a great job. It's amazing what a better finish a cylinder mower produces, however the ground needs to be prepared for it's use though as stones knock out the cutting alignment and any tough clump of grass will prevent the blades from turning. Anyway, I'm done the back lawn, the bit by the greenhouse, the edges to the main lawn, the bit beside the boat and the dyke edge under the trees with is so far and it's worked a dream. Needed a few charges, but this was because I'd left it a while to mow these areas so they needed the extra juice.

Need fuel for the ride-on now so I can do the chicken coop - then hopefully that will be the last mow for a while. I'll probably only do the lawns two or three times between now and spring - but anything may happen as the air temperature seems to be all over the place.

I'll sign off now as I need to go grocery shopping.

Legumes etc

Runner beans still producing vast quantities. Need to be constantly picking them though to obtain good crop. Going straight in the freezer. Mange tout are coming into their own now. Although we only planted 3 as a test run and only 2 plants seem to be thriving, I got a good handful of crop today. Thinking about it, the main crops next year are going to be Spuds (goes without saying), broccoli, beans and mangetout. To be perfectly honest, the greenhouse is a mess at the moment. I sowed the right sort of seeds for the season in rows and waited to see what happened. What I found happened was, not all seeds would germinate - with a few of the others succumbing to caterpillars, leaving large gaps for weeds and previously seeded potatoes to grow in their place. Now unfortunately, some of the weeds look like potato plants and I've not been able to tell the difference, so anything other than the crop in the row has been pulled and as it's a greenhouse that is watered regularly, the weeds have grown again - within a week. Next year I'll be more careful to make sure that once the seeds have germinated, to carefully transplant the strongest ones into the proper rows and anything standing out of line will be destroyed... Whoa, This gardening lark is turning me into a fascist. I also need to remember that even though legumes fix nitrogen from the air, they still require other nutrients, so I'll do what is says in the book and dig some trenches... although unlike the fruit bushes, I'll make sure that the manure has been completely rotted.

Learning curve.

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Bloody Wind!

I really need to get this lawn seed down before the weather gets too cold otherwise I'll have to wait till April to get this bit established, but it hasn't stopped being windy (apart from that day I did the spraying) since the middle of the summer. One of the drawbacks of living on The Fens I suppose. Shifted barrowloads of topsoil from the other end of the garden yesterday to the bit by the orchard which is all gravel and preparing area to be lush grass right up to the curb. There's always something to do round here so today I'm going to strim the front dyke again as well as in the bottom of it and around the road tunnels to tidy it up a bit now that there is not much water in the bottom. At least it's sheltered from the wind down there!

Fruit Harvest

Hurrah! A post that doesn't include the words dyke, greenhouse, or lawn.....DOH!

Today we picked the fruit. From one tiny pear tree we got one carrier bag full of pears - need to ripen in a box with the apples. From a small apple tree we got about the same amount of apples. Some had been slightly eaten by insects (well at least more than the pears) but we got about 15 good apples that hadn't been touched at all.. and - wait for it........ 4 carrier bags of plums from one 9 year old tree. All were edible, ranging from nearly ripe through to very ripe... we ate the very ripe ones tonight. Hope we don't have the proverbials tomorrow morning. So far so good. Photos of the plum harvest included. My wife is taking one of the plum bags into work tomorrow - all washed of course and for the staff to eat. Not sure what to do with them yet, but we've supposedly got 3 days to decide - unless we give them all away. ONE TREE!! Self sufficiency here I come. Note to self: Man does not live on plums alone.

Dyke

Yet another post about the dyke...sorry. Nearly got to the end today, but mower plug fell in bottom of dyke so leaving it for a day or two to let the plug completely dry out. Wasn't plugged in when it happened thankfully.

WHY you may be asking am I using an electric mower for such a huge job? Well reader, that's a very good question and I'm glad you asked it. Dyke sides are very steep and I would never have the strength to use a mower to do the sides. So then why don't I use a strimmer? The dyke sides are presently very uneven - and this old mower is doing the job of flattening them out nicely, secondly, it's impossible to get to the top of the dyke when standing in the bottom and vice versa. I will be using my strimmer to do the bottom when these top bits are completely done.

Spray starting to have an effect, although probably too early to tell if I've killed everything else in the process!

A plan for today is to prepare more of the far end (where the JCB removed the compost heaps) for lawn. Not long now till I sow another half acre!

Calm day - Spray day

Finally, yesterday, the air was still enough to spray the drive and weeds with general weedkiller. I'm hoping that I've not killed everything else in the garden at the same time. It took 2x 20 litre napsacks of 'roundup' to do the lot. The plan today is to do a little more of the other side of the dyke with the overall aim of having the dykes and the front of the lawn manageable by the start of October. Then the painting, varnishing, oiling, bulb planting & pruning will round the year off nicely. Then I'd better think about getting more logs for the logshed. I have a feeling it's going to be a harsh winter.

Getting back to normality

Apologies to my readers. I should be getting back to normal with blog posts about dykes, greenhouses and lawns again very soon.

Needless to say, with the aid of a very very long extension lead, I've managed to completely mow one side of the dyke down to about a foot of the water surface using our trusty electric steel bladed mower. It was back breaking work to say the least. Now I need to do the other side, but that will have to take a back burner for a week or so as my annual reunion with my friends will be coming up soon. A little late for a housewarming, I should have quite a good turn out this year with friends coming from as far away as Letterkenny in Ireland (Hi Paddy!). It will give me a chance to show off my handy work in the garden over the last 2-3 months.

Greenhouse update: I hate catepillars!!! Lots of foliage devestated by those hungry little blighters, yet I'm determined to have organic vegetables so every evening I or a delegate have been removing our green and stripey friends to the bottom of the garden where thay may either enjoy a diet of nettles or be themselves a diet for our winged visitors. My seedlings are coming up well but they've been put outside as the greenhouse was drying them up too quickly between watering.

Another ground spreading conifer planted. This time down beside the rhododendron near the greenhouse as the border was looking a little sparse in this area. Speaking of rhododendrons, we have a plan to convert the front raised border into a haven for acid loving plants. It's easy to maintain pH different to that of the environment in a raised bed so, thanks to my Mother-in-Law weeding/howing it on a daily basis for the last few weeks, it's now a nice clean slate in which to establish the ericacious beauties.

No posts for a few days as I'm planning to take our boat out again. Soon I will have a boating blog. I'll post the link here when it's up and running.

Week Out

I went back to Ireland for a few days to see relatives for a week. As you can see, the blog has been pretty thin on the ground recently. Don't worry, I will sort out the picture of the garden since the JCB has been in another post.

While I was away, my mother-in-law and her partner kept things ticking over nicely as well as doing other things over and above what I'd been expecting. The lawns were mowed, the beds were hoed, the greenhouse watered etc, but they also did loads more weeding that I'd expected and sorted out the raised bed. Before I left, I had planted some fruit trees (2 raspberry and 1 gooseberry). I dug an 18" trench and filled it with rotted grass... however as this was still stinking and had not completely rotted, my Mother-In-Law removed some of it and added some bonemeal and blood so that the trees would have a chance...... see I'm a total novice at some things!

Planted a few conifers the day before I left, in the spaces left by the removal of old ones. A tall one beside the greenhouse and the groundspreader near the shed. My wife helped with these discovering first hand that Junipers, whether dead or alive, can give you a nasty rash.

I recon I'm back up to speed now on the garden since my time away so things will start to be done again.

Yesterday - JCB Day!

More to come.

More stones cleared from dyke side. Sowed Lupins, Red Hot Pokers, Stock, Wallflower, Iceland Poppy & Hollyhocks. Removed runners from one strawberry plant in the greenhouse. Result, a big tray of strawberry plants.

Strimmed about 80% of the top of the dyke nearest to the house today. There seems to be a slight issue with bank subsidence. I'll speak to someone who may know about it tomorrow and if it IS really an issue and it cannot be fixed, then it could be a drainage board issue.

Bought loads of biennial seeds and seed trays today. Shops seem to be selling seeds at half price now for obvious reasons so bargains can be had for seeds to be planted for next year flowers.

Cleared stones from a large area of the dykeside lawn project today. All stones should be removed by next weekend (fingers crossed) and selective weedkiller will then be sprayed... with the hope of raking and seeding the following week. Watch this space.

Weather still not stable enough to get JCB in. Hot sunny morning, thunderstorm in afternoon, hot and sunny again in the evening to dry up the torrents. Tomorrow should be good for the lawn mowing, but out for most of the day... typical!!

Rained today. Watered greenhouse. Got an email from the drainage board with information about dyke distance restrictions. Will talk more about this at a later date. Spent a couple of hours yesterday clearing the rough dead thatch from the other side of the dyke to give grass a better chance of taking. Only covered about 20 metres before the strimmer ran out of fuel, then I had to go somewhere. Decided that I'm going to attempt to attack the tougher reeds at the bottom of the dyke with a manual sickle as the strimmer probably won't work well under water and I'd require a brushcutter to get through them anyway. As a result of my efforts yesterday, I had a bit of a bad back today... mainly because I used muscles that I haven't used in years! Good exercise, but I do think that the drainage board should take better care of it since they're the one's making all the rules. On the Fens, the drainage board is God as if it weren't for them, we'd all be under water. Just like the original God in the bible, they write a complicated antiquated book of rules, expect you to follow it and expect dire consequences if it is not obeyed - and then abandon you. As you can tell, my faith in the Fen God is starting to falter, however I await the coming of the messianic digger with an open mind.

Removed old dead ground spreading conifer yesterday (Juniper Horizontalis) and all the grass and weeds that had grown up around it. Heavy job. Used the rotavator to get some of the stubborn weeds, howed around it, got rid of stubborn thistles growing through neighbouring plants and then re-planted a "Blue Carpet" Juniper in it's place. It's a little plant not more than 4 inches across, but should spread in no time.

Rearranged greenhouse yesterday also, to make the spa-bath users feel that they are not sitting in a working greenhouse - even though they are. All worked out for the best for all parties involved.

Strawberries

We have two strawberry patches here, one in the greenhouse and one in the raised bed by the dyke. Not sure what variety they are but the one's near the dyke were flowering and producing fruit when we moved here (mid to late June). Birds were eating the ones near the dyke so we netted them but since then there have been loads of runners but no flowers or fruit. I understand that to increase the yield runners need to be detached from the plants, but now we've left it so long I'm not sure which are the offspring and which are the parent plants. I guess I'll need to look a little closer. They may just be a Junebearing variety but I could be wrong. I remember when I was a kid that they used to produce bumper harvests from early summer through to the first frosts. I'm going to consult my horticulture guru, my Aunt, for some more information on this as the web and my gardening books seem to be thin on information of this kind.

Sacrificial Thistle

Say that after a few bevies!

Finally planted the Christmas potatoes today. I selected the biggest of the shoots and picked off the rest. This is to give the healthiest offshoot the best possible chance... quite different to the welfare state. I dug the trench and created the furrows. This was my first attempt at sowing and it showed. The greenhouse resembled an archaeological dig by the time i'd finished with it. 10 spuds in one row. Just managed to fit them in with the required distance between each one.

Tidied the weeds a little around the strawberry patch and the end by the far door. Just as I was about to dig up the thistles, I noticed they were covered in black-fly. I quickly checked all the crops and they appeared to be free of these pests. Either this is because they are pest resistant varieties - OR - the aphids prefered the thistle. Either way, I decided to leave the thistle because if they are happy munching the weeds, that means they are not on my crops. I'll keep a close eye just in case they decide to multiply and have a change of diet.

Knocked down bar in annexe today. 15 barrow loads of bricks and mortar over to the end of the garden I'm clearing. A mere drop in the ocean to the amount of stuff that will need to be cleared from there so not bothered. Once it's been scraped into a pile and I've salvaged what I need, I'll either arrange for a skip road contact the farm down the road who are always looking for clean hardcore. I wonder what dirty hardcore is.

The lawn was tested for toughness today. Cricket and football.. well more of a little kickabout and a few underarms. Our ten year old nephew is visiting for a week. Lawn faired well. Still looking good after it's short mow the other day.

Dug up some more spuds. Only about a bucket load left to dig after this lot's been used. Nearly time to plant the lates so we can have nice new ones for Christmas.

Rained nearly all day. Nothing much more to report only that I turfed over that bed in the back garden that used to be home to an ornimental miniature willow. It was chewed down by our dog Lola.She looked all pleased with herself when she came trotting over to me with a tree in her mouth!! I guess we should have been more carefull. This happened about a month ago and since then we've put a little chicken wire around the base of the vine that covers the pergola and been a little more careful when we let the dogs out. I got the turf from the edge of the lawn near the greenhouse when I straightened the edges the other day, filled in the gaps between the turf pieces with soil, added a little grass seed and covered with strawberry netting.

Mowing lawns is fun - except when it rains - intermittently. I was in and out of the back doors today like a man in a weather house, frantically using the patio table as a temporary cover for the electric mower. I use the electric mower for the little enclosed back garden. Apart from the dog patches, little patches of scorched grass caused by too much nitrogen due to the habitual weeing of bitches in the same place, there is another problem with fine grasses and dogs. Compression. If you leave mowing the lawn for a few weeks, the grass becomes compressed by dogs lying in the sun and walking. Unless you use the lowest setting on the mower, the grass is never cut but contunues to get more and more compressed and dies leaving a less from green appearance. I tried to sort this out today by mowing lower to the ground and yes, you guessed it, the grass was so tough and matted, the result was a heavily chewed appearence.

That does it. I'm growing clover - EVERYWHERE. Roll on the spring!

Need to go shopping in a few hours and hopefully to the cinema later so I'd really better get on with the hoeing. The plan was to hoe the entire border around the main lawn as well as the bit by the kitchen (which I'm planning in the spring to convert to a cottage garden with a lot of colourful annuals) - however the rain is intermittent and the ground a bit mucky so I may only do a fraction of what I wanted.

Oh - and by the way, the vegetable seeds that I sowed the other day in the greenhouse - they've started to germinate ALREADY!! It's all happening here at Mallard Lodge!

Clover Lawns

I've just mowed the lawns today.. all of them. I mowed the big lawn first at number 5 setting on the ride-on and then at number 3. I've been in two minds whether to keep clover in the lawn, to encourage it and to sow seed where there is none. Until the 1950's clover in lawns was considered the height of excellence. It was only with the introduction of broad leaf herbicides in the late 50s and 60s that clover started it's decline in favour. Climate change as it is - causing drier summers may bring clover back into fashion as everybody loves a green lawn and it will help - yes you guessed it - the dwindling bee population (only if allowed to flower). Other reasons that I may start to encourage it is that it is totally immune to dog patches and it totally wins out over weeds. Looking at it, I'd have a nicer lawn and save about £100 a year on herbicides and dog-rocks. I feel a bit silly now having had the lawn sprayed about a month ago - however the existing clover was hardly affected. Probably just as well. Anyway, best time to sow clover seed is early spring so I have a while to make up my mind. In the mean time I'll just manually remove other weeds using the weed removal tool.

Just mowed chicken pen, all the bits surrounding it and a patch of lawn beside the veranda. I have a feeling that our new petrol strimmer may be running a bit rich. Petrol cap said 2-stroke 40:1 so I mixed up 125ml of 2-stroke oil with 5l of regular unleaded and have been using it ever since. I checked my calculations since. Don't know what I can be doing wrong. Ride-on is down to it's last 2l so may need a trip down the road with Jerry McCann (disc: that's a Jerry Can - and not Maddie's Dad) before Friday. Friday I intend to Mow the big lawn again. I've been leaving it 2 weeks between mows recently as it's taking quite a while for the grass to recover from the drought. Noticably greener than it was a few weeks ago though. Only half of the clover has been effected by the selective stuff our neighbour sprayed on it about 3 weeks ago... all other broadleaf weeds have been erradicated - although I may have seen one dandilion on it earlier. Still - not bad for a half acre. I'd be tempted to leave clover to cover the lawn as it remains green when everything else dies off, but there are no selective weedkillers for grass+clover. This may seem like a lazy cop-out and some may say that striving for perfection only leads to disappointment, but I think it's worth a shot.

A few months ago I bought a potted parsley plant for my window sill in my previous house.... it took so much water and TLC to keep the darn thing alive, in the end it died and I felt a failure. Today I spent about an hour trying to erradicate parsley that had seeded in a bed that I want to prepare for annuals next year. It was about to seed again so I took the sheers to it and howed out most of last years seedlings. Is this Karma? Parsley Korma anyone?

Yellow Conifer

We have three fairly large yellow conifers in our roundabout and my mind has been drawn to them over the last few weeks as they are starting to develop vast areas of brown. We inherited 2 or three dead conifers in borders when we bought the place and I'm worried that these may go the same way. I've identified these trees as "Yellow Holmstrup" (Thuja occidentalis). We've had a dry spell that has lasted for a few weeks but these brown areas have only increased in size since the rains returned. Other sources say that it could be a disease or an insect. I know that Laylandii (the yellow varieties of which can be confused with the yellow holmstrup)get vast brown areas in hedges when pruned. I really hope these things aren't dying as they are slow growing and would take a good number of years to get ones like them. It may only be an annual discolouration - as afterall even evergreens (or everyellows in this case!) need to shed leaves at some point.

Just been doing some more research and it looks like the problem may have been the lack of rains afterall. I've examined the trees and there are no signs of aphid or disease. Conifers are usually very hungry and thirsty trees at the best of times since they have relatively shallow root systems when compared to other types of tree. Also, it can take up to 2 years for the tree to return to it's former glory. Conifers are only alive on the outside - that has immediate contact with sunlight with the centre being almost always dead wood. This more often than not explains the large brown patches in Leylandii hedges, i.e. over pruning or pruning after a long spell of underpruning. Leaves that go brown don't recover so it takes that length of time for good growth to cover it.

Make mental note: During times of drought, water conifers.

Repaired roofing felt on the summer house yesterday. That was a job I wasn't expecting to be that difficult. It was a nightmare getting the new felt under the strip above it and then round the edges of the eves. We managed it. Required another pair of hands as it was really windy and the stuff kept blowing everywhere. There were a few rips in the new felt but nothing a coat of bitumen won't cure.

Saturday was a productive day. Managed to sow 6 rows of seeds in the greenhouse. Well, with a bit of help. Mange tout, radishes, carrots, spring onions, broccoli & turnips. The ground was already well prepared as I had rotavated it earlier in the month. OK, so it's July and some may think that it may be slightly too late to plant crops. These crops were selected as the recommended sowing time was March to June. As it's only the start of July and it's in a greenhouse, I decided that I'd give it a chance. We should know in spring whether it was a good idea or not.

Yesterday morning, I had a visit from the friend of our neighbours who has an old JCB and has agreed to do the odd bit of 'extreme gardening' down the end of the property. When we get a good spell of dry weather again - i.e. when the land is less mucky, I've arranged to clear the ground at the north west of the property. This bit of land - fenced off from the rest of the garden - was to the best of my knowledge used for mechanical work and is covered in gravel, hardcore, weeds and a catoniaster. It's about 10 metres wide and 20 metres long and once it is clear, I'll be using the muck heaps at the front of the property (formed from ten years of compost and excavated material from a pond that never was - yet) as topsoil in order to extend the lawn at the back of the property the whole length adding an extra half the area again to the size of the lawn. I'm also planning to move a 4 metre feathered fence from this patch to fill a gap in the property boundary. The JCB will be used here to dig out the existing fence posts (nice big railway sleepers) and dig holes for their new home. I'll need to remove the feathered fence from these posts before hand.. here's hoping that it'll come off in one lump. I also have planned for this area, two large 650 litre timber compost units to take the vast amounts of biomass that will accumulate in working on a garden of this size as well as keeping the 150 metre dyke at the side of the property clear.

There is another smaller lawning project I have on the go at the dyke side of the propert. I say smaller, but it's about 30 metres long and 10 metres wide and won't require the use of a JCB. This is that patch of land between the dyke and the back of the garages which was used in the past as a vegetable patch and has more recently just been rotavated to keep tidy. Plans then to give the raised strawberry bed a coat of preservative stain and plant lavender around this lawned patch.

Lawn is good in a garden this size. It naturally keeps the weeds at bay (with - dare I say it - a little help from selective weedkillers) and makes vast areas a lot tidier and easier to keep. I know there is a call to help increase plant biodiversity in order to help revive the dwindling bee population, but that is why I will be planting hundreds of lavender plants around the property. Bees love the stuff!

Anyway I suppose I better go and water the greenhouse... there's always something to do even when it's raining!

Today is wet. Very wet. One of those boring wet days where the sky is a uniform grey with no interesting cloud formations. Unlike last Friday when I witnessed the largest most violent thunderstorm I've ever seen in this country. Lightning flashes every 20 seconds or so, some double, some triple, some even forked from about 10am through to 4pm and rain like you wouldn't believe. Since then I've been hearing stories of several properties still sorting out the aftermath of being struck and flash flooding.

Welcome to Mallard Lodge!

Mallard Lodge is a 1.5 acre estate in South Lincolnshire, England comprising of the main house, annexe, workshop, double garage, large greenhouse, summer house, animal pen, sheds and lawns. My wife and I moved in on Friday 19th June 2009, followed by my inlaws the week after.

The property is situated on totally flat fen land and the area is dominated by agriculture and horticulture. Many plants you see on sale in the majority of the UK's supermarkets are grown within a mile radius from this plot. In fact, this property was itself once a part of that vast area of greenhouses but over the years, due mainly to the work of the previous owner, it was transformed into the luxurious property it is today. In fact, less than 10 years ago, there was only a small dilapidated 2 bed-roomed house dating from the 1930s on the site with broken greenhouses, oil tanks and split tarmac central road. I've been told that I could see photos of what the place used to be like when they first bought the property in 1999. If I get permission, I may even be able to post a few on here in the future.

This blog is intended to be a diary of the grounds rather than the goings on inside the house. As "Chief Groundsman!", it's my responsibility to ensure that the site is - at least - kept at the same condition as it was when we bought it. Idyllic as it is, there are still a number of areas where improvements can be made. I intend to outline these improvements as well as document the general upkeep, gardening, planting, sowing, burning, composting, food growing, building, dyke cleaning, painting etc etc etc that is required to keep a property such as this in tiptop condition.

Hello World!

Blog opened. Will start tomorrow!