Yay garden!

[ewt]

My many thanks to purplekaren and her boyfriend (no LJ), owlfish, pfy, hairyears, pplfichi and my housemate mstevens. I have, nearly, a proper garden now!

Much weeding was done, in front and back, and the hedge has been trimmed again (Shears that don't suck, or possibly sharpening/instruction in sharpening of the existing ones, would be good). Potatoes came out of the stack. The vegetable patch was re-established, dug up with a fork and then weeds taken out and then made to be flat; I need to put paths on it but this is going to be easy. The Passiflora edulis is now in the ground, trained up a rose trellis of doubtful engineering in almost exactly the spot I wanted it; it will be much happier there than in a container. The compost heap TOWERS over everything and I will really have to get a better container; I'm thinking maybe one of those rotary drum things would be good, not sure how much they cost. Quince suckers were attacked, some successfully and some not. The BBQ was cleaned, and they let me make FIRE in it and we cooked potatoes. We had Big Soup Soup and potatoes for our Thanksgiving meal. They were yum! And I toasted some mozzarella and it was good.

I remember now that my parents' BBQ always had a propane tank underneath. Maybe this is why it lit so much more easily than mine. Ah well; next time I will use more kindling. I am still a human bellows.

There was nothing I couldn't have done myself, but there is no way I could have done all that myself in a day, and it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun alone.

There was a toad, AND a frog. Frogs do really good hops! And of course the neighbourhood cats were around, taking a very supervisory role and providing ample CUTEness to get us through the day.

I need some garden chairs. It was a little too chilly for people to stay outside into the evening without gathering around the fire for warmth, but I only have one chair in the garden (and the seat rotted through so I had to perch on the edge, but I want to fix it as it is otherwise a good solid chair), so only one person could really tend fire at a time.

I'd really like a BBQ with a proper lid, and not so wobbly. Or possibly a huge chiminea, so that when we're sitting down any smoke will go up above our heads. A clay one would retain the heat for longer, which is nice. And wouldn't be likely to rust in the back garden.

Things still to do:
-head out after breakfast and make sure all my tools have been tidied away
-lay paths in veg garden
-plant peas, garlic, other stuff to overwinter
-divide the chives before it gets too cold
-plant out the wild garlic (or are they chinese chives? tasty anyway) that got pulled up by accident from the front garden into a pot for feanelwa
-cut off the quince suckers we couldn't pull
-assemble the garden table
-saw the bits of dead shed into burn-able lengths (they are too rotten to use for building a Better Compost Bin)
-eat spaghetti squash
-eat the acorn squash owlfish brought... and the purple popcorn. YUM!
-do something about the "lawn" - I'm thinking lots of creeping thyme and creeping chamomile. I don't have a lawnmower; when I asked the landlady if she had one she gave me a strimmer, which doesn't actually work very well, especially if the grass has been walked upon. The few times the grass has been cut it has been done by hand with dull shears. Maybe I should learn to use a scythe?
-continue tidying patio
-work out some sort of sane tool storage.

I was so tired I fell asleep on the sofa before all the guests had escaped. Okay, there was only one guest left, but... thing. Sorry about that. Life is pretty exhausting sometimes.

Today I smell of smoke, but not too badly; my hair was tied back, of course, and I changed out of the grubby clothes after getting ash all over them putting the fire out. I should keep a bucket of sand around for that sort of thing, really; water is good, but messy.

Comments

[juliet]

Sounds v productive day! Your council may do compost bins on the cheap (ours does) so it might be worth investigating that before paying out CASH.

[mstevens.livejournal.com]

My many thanks to purplekaren and her boyfriend (no LJ), [info]owlfish, [info]pfy, [info]hairyears, [info]pplfichi and my housemate [info]mstevens

I didn't do anything!

I was so tired I fell asleep on the sofa before all the guests had escaped. Okay, there was only one guest left, but... thing. Sorry about that.

He didn't seem to mind too much.

Please to be cleaning up some of the mud on the floors inside.

Food (what I had of it) was great!

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

I did actually sweep once already this morning. I suspect not bringing in mud from outside will require careful foot-checking for a few days because there's a lot of loose stuff around.

[caradea.livejournal.com]

We can/could get tumbler composters from the council for £20 but the allotment shop took down the sign, i think, so I'm not sure if this is still the case. This would be the kind that flip the long way around and has to be pushed and shoved and grabbing a little handle at the bottom to help pull it around... not the posh crank on the side, more horizontal kinds (which go for over £100 iirc from the various garden shows I've been to)