More beautiful weather this month, and the growth in the garden has been phenomenal, even though there has not really been very much rain. It’s been very busy outside, but fortunately I had extra labour again (Christine for the last week, and Helen for a few days) Plenty of colour around, it’s just a shame I’m not a better photographer.
The orchard has moved on from blossom to teeny-tiny fruits, and lots of undergrowth. Paths are kept mown for access to most areas, and the wild flowers can have the rest until I need to be in there.
There’s been a lot of wildlife activity – newts in the pond, lizards in the compost heap, and more birds than I can count. But unfortunately the only ones that stayed still enough for me to photograph were the caterpillars.
Remember Mount Harpsbridge? This is what it looked like in January.
Finally gone! After chipping away at it for months, Christine bullied us into three days hard labour to finally clear the last of it away. It has now been seeded (and covered to prevent the birds getting it all) and we’ll soon have a bowling green. Well it will be green anyhow…
Major infrastructure work this month is the installation of a gas tank. Although we love the log burner, we are also soft, and want to be able to have the house warm in the mornings, or when we’ve been out without having to stoke it up. So after research, we decided on an LPG tank, and a boiler and heating system that will integrate with the log burner and the solar thermal water heating. Although it has been tucked into a corner the tank isn’t the prettiest thing, so we’ve planted a hedge to screen it. It’s yew, so it may take another 5 years to get high enough, in the meantime there are always climbers.
A few shots of the polytunnel. It’s mostly planted up now (Tomatoes, Peppers, Chillis, Cucumbers) but I’ve left a few of the self seeded flowers in until they have to go because I need the room. Christine and I also wrestled with the spaghetti of various previous irrigation systems, and set them up to run from the large container outside which is filled with rainwater pumped from butts outside the house. Possibly visible on the last picture when expanded
In the back garden, the woodpile at the top of the garden has been removed and sawn up for burning. Surprisingly only one small frog had to be re-homed, I thought more wildlife would have taken advantage of the shelter. Also some of Mount Harpsbridge was used to start levelling the grass. That’s what the brown spots are. Finally the pond was emptied into many containers, then moved to the side and refilled. Birds were a little confused at first, but have moved over quite happily now. It’s now safely out of the way for next month’s activities…
As I am unlikely to get any borders into the back garden soon, I decided to make a perennial bed to get some of my transferred plants out of their pots until I find a permanent home for them. So Christine and I did a ‘Ground Force’ instant border.
The raised beds are filling up. The fruit bushes are getting smothered in convolvulus, but I keep trying to dig them out. Final area between orchard and pear trees cleared.
The usual round up of pictures that don’t fit anywhere else
- Wood store in front garden looking picturesque
- Jasmine taking over the house – but soon to have a severe haircut 🙁
- Mediterranean area filling up
- Chaos in the front bedroom as work starts on the heating system
- Visitor looking for somewhere to float his boat 🙂
- Lavender and others in the space cleared of nettles last month
- Poorly cat needing lots of attention (better now, or as good as he’s likely to get)
So that’s it for May. I just hope the good weather continues so the work outside can continue.
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