Seems like a lifetime away that we moved in here. Cold winters always make the last summer more distant and the next summer impossibly slow to arrive... but it always does eventually.
Just awaiting another snow fall. Snow started this year on the 18th December, most of it had melted by new year's eve, when we had the biggest brightest moon I'd ever seen, bright enough to give the conifers a well defined shadow. Apparently it was a blue moon too, the unusual occurrence of a second full moon in the same month and on top of that, there was a lunar eclipse too. So while the rest of the world was partying or watching Jools on the telly, a once in a hundred year event was happening outside. Anyway, it was very cold, so I don't blame them. The snow, by the way, was back a few days later.
September, when I finally got back into the garden psyche after all the personal stuff in Ireland going on, found me raking, seeding and rolling the lawn at the front of the oil tanks, the piece of land that the previous owner used as another veg patch but had more recently just been extra work. All but a small patch near the fruit tree at the far end has been lawned... although it has been covered with snow for the last month.
Started to lay more paving slabs in front of the wood shed/oil tanks and did my back in. This was in October and my back still hasn't recovered. May have to see an osteopath. The rest of
the slabs we had lying around the garden (including the ones in the chicken run), were then laid by my cousin when we were waiting for the digger to arrive (see next paragraph). Still require about 3-4 and a half more slabs to complete the job (the half for around the wood shed) but I'll probably use a roller truck to shift them next time!The digger work we had done in August was a great job, and it's fantastic that we moved the old muck/compost heaps away from the dyke side, however, the other side of the garden really wasnt levelled enough for a lawn and we had the huge heap of gravel/brick/weed membrane at
the far end to be shifted. I had thought about getting a skip in and getting the whole lot carted away, but then I had a better idea. My cousin needed work and I needed a job done, so I went out and bought a second wheelbarrow for the job. Five days into it, we decided that it was futile sliding around on wet clay with wheelbarrows to shift about 100+ tonnes of muck even if I had been introduced to the random joy that is BBC6 Music on my cousin's newly bought (a bargain at £30) second hand Sony DAB radio - of which I am still sorely jealous). It was, therefore, decided unanimously, that hiring a minidigger was the best option. £60+vat for the day got us a digger and it didn't take cuz long to figure out how to use it. It was extremely cold (even for me who was nothing more than tea/sandwich/roley maker and pointer outer of potential landing sites 
for the half tonne mud aliens) and I could tell by the end of the hire period that cuz was getting fed up with it. Not surprising since he'd been shifting the brown goopy porridge around the garden for half of one day and half of the next, however there has never been a more satisfying sound than dropping half a tonne of wet clay with a digger bucket from a height of 30 feet. If you can imagine a "SPLWOP" but with groundshaking sub-bass, you'll be half way there. About an hour before they were due to collect the said earthmover, we decided to have a bit of fun with it. Video available to Facebook friends only - and contrary to urban legend, I did not pull my cousin's arms out of their sockets. I spent a the whole time doing the mother-hen bit, telling cuz not to damage anyone's fences or the greenhouse with the digger.. only to put a hole in the pot shed myself when alighting from the vehicle with my coat wrapped round the lever. Karma. Result: Levelled land for lawn & two great big raised areas for use either as rockery or to provide a base for the Spalding Mountain Climbers Association.The greenhouse: Harvested 4 carrots (one deformed and two tiny), 2 heads of broccoli (about 2" long) and several spring onions. Apart from the beans which I didn't plant, the mange tout that my wife planted, and the spuds/plums that the previous owner planted, it wasn't the best
of harvests. I think I need to do a bit more reading. All the bean poles have been pulled up and the rest of it totally rotavated, ready for the early spring crops (due early March). I'm drawing up a 4 year plan at the moment to help me with crop rotation. I'll talk about this in another post. A decision has been made to move the beans to the bit where the stawberry patch currently resides and grow strawberries in a tub (or one of those strawberry buckets made from sliding panels) as they don't freeze that well and nice though they are, there's not much point having a huge harvest of them when I could use the land for something else. I may change my mind later on. The bit between the greenhouse and the pot shed, I'm still undecided what to do with - only that it needs weeding and rotavating and with the large amount of fire ash I've been poring on it all winter, it should be nice to till soon. It still has the raspberry and gooseberry canes on a tiny bit next to the greenhouse, but I'm not sure if they've survived the winter (or indeed the manure I planted them in). Speaking of manure, I really need to speak to some horsey people to get some fertiliser pretty soon, for both the mushrooms and for use as mulch.
Bought two plastic compost bins at the garden centre about a month ago. Cheaper than Focus (and online if you consider deliver charges of such bulky items)at £20 each. I gave in to the fact that my compost heap building skills leave a lot to be desired and knocked down my handy work with the digger. I really need to start preparing the ground down the end for the permanent resting place of these bins, but the snow has hindered everything. But hopefully will have my own mulch for the 2011 growing season. Oh I can't wait.
Have a plan to make paper briquettes for next winter as a substitute for maybe at least one delivery of logs. Heating oil and wood bills have been horendous this year but then again it has been the coldest snap in nearly 30 years (so far).
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