Cold and raining. Winter again. That was summer for the UK. One month of nice weather, now the jet stream is pissing all over us again. Oh well, it's good for the potatoes i suppose.
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SuicidalSymphonies
I think I'll take a dirt nap.
- Oct 13, 2019
- 1,028
WOW! This is so great to hear!!!! I'm so happy to see your username pop up here. x
As for gardening, do you plan to grow food or just flowers and what not? I love gardens, but I would never be able to maintain one.
Bravo!!
Thank you! At the moment I'm literally growing weeds and local plants. I'd love to grow edibles but haven't the space, it's really just a glorified yard with some discarded pots. I scavenge everything.
My old garden had rhubarb, blueberries, blackcurrants, strawberries, mint, rosemary, wild garlic, potatoes, chard, the list goes on. I Never even really made any effort it all just came up every year.
Sadly, now I'm reduced to weeds. Though I do have some mint. Start again at the beginning, like always I guess.I felt I'll today. So I thought sod it and started doing stuff.
I cleaned some of the living room then watched my brother rebuilding a retaining wall in the alley with scavenged masonry.
He ran out, so we wandered over the back field scouting for more rocks.
I managed to find another variety of mint, some celandine, some more foxgloves and poached egg plant and my brother found some rose bushes that someone had chucked.
All of it is now planted in my yarden. I'm fast running out of pots and soil.
I treated myself to mushrooms, grated courgette, sauted kale plus garlic tumeric and chile on the toast.
Still feeling ill though.
I'd post pics but my Internet is playing silly buggers and won't let me.
Quarky00
Enlightened
- Dec 17, 2019
- 1,956
Looks lovely ! Things are really thriving there , even compared to images from 2 (?) weeks ago . Looking great . Time to look for more pots ;) Don't need to be the perfectly ceramic pots with proper drainage and crockery etc ... But I'm speaking to the well (planting perfectionist)..
That 'spread' looks delicious !! *jealus*Oh I just take whatever my brother scavenges. Not got a good source for soil though, have to scratch around the verge a bit more but it's colluvium mixed with rubbish.
Just had an idea. There's more old allotments close by. If they are disused there's bound to be stuff to womble.I scouted the old allotments area today. Abandoned and overgrown. Nothing going. Then I spotted an interesting clearing over the fence but couldn't get to it. I had to back track and find the entrance.
I found what appears to be a disused garden space, tucked away and secret. It's gorgeous! There's an old she'd that must have had an animal in it at sometime, a collapsed greenhouse, a burnt out bit, but most of the area is slowly returning to the wild. There even a little garden plot and a sunken trough that works as a shallow pond. Wow!
It looks like it hasn't been abandoned too long, but it's definitely not being used. I need to ask the local, allotment keeper about it, he'll know what the story is. I imagine someone has been evicted by the council a while back to prepare the land for development. But that area is on a hill, bad drainage and severely overgrown. It would take millions just to clear and drain it, let alone develop. It's also where the local dump used to be, long ago. So it's not going to happen, not in this economy.
I imagine the council are just leaving it.
I can totally see myself tidying it up some, though it would be a huge project, too much for me in my unhealthy state. Still, it's food for thought and more research needs to be done.
A bit later I found a new source for topsoil up the hill and also managed to get some shoots of the bamboo plant. Know have bamboo in the yarden!The whole house is now clean and tidy. Thirty years of grime scraped away. I've been through all my possessions to inventory what I kept in the move against what I lost. The yarden is tidy and growing, looking verdent with a wide variety of local plants.
That's it, nothing more to keep me occupied.
Just as well, because I'm feeling ill and tired. Various things but my neuropathy is making it hard to walk far.
This has been like CBT for me (and no I don't mean like dyslexic CTB, I mean actual CBT) but I've now run out of things I can realistically do and run out of steam too.
What can I occupy my time with now?
Feck, maybe I will have to start decorating.I've been feeling quite rough recently. Neuropathic pain and aching knees etc. All seems to be joining up!
Today was glorious sunshine so I thought sod it I'm not going to malinger. I decided to head into the back field to pickup some ash from the fire pit to add to my compost and get some wild garlic seeds to sow for next year.
I failed on both counts.
Instead I talked to the allotment owner who let me in and gave me shed loads of huge plant pots, big enough to put trees in! Ironically, this is just what I need as the other day I found a mini deciduous woodland in a planter. Ash, oak, maple and sweet chestnut saplings, all crammed in together. If I separate them out into big lots I can have a deciduous mini forest on the shady patio! He also gave me an oak sapling he'd grown from an acorn. So I have yet another tree.
Then I went to get the wormery I'd found earlier and emptied of its rotting meat and maggots and left to de-scent. I also picked up two bags of discarded compost and a bag of fermented hay for the compost I'm making from food waste.
Add in a few extra smaller plant pots I found and a couple of naturalised garden plants I found along the way and it comes to quite a haul. I'm actually running out of space in the yard, though it's starting to look nice and green as things grow and I add in trees.
I also discovered that the spare land out back is earmarked for allotments at just 70 quid a year. I'm tempted, so I could grow food, and have a contact, but I suspect they won't be allotments but actually garden plots. Which means no topsoil other than the crappy colluvium that's there and no water supply, you just rent the land. That would be of no use unfortunately. But I'll keep my ear to the ground.
I actually even managed to pick up some wood ash but failed to get the wild garlic seeds.
Now I have to figure out what to do with all the trees.
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Quarky00
Enlightened
- Dec 17, 2019
- 1,956
Pictures show quite a 'failure' there ....
Welcome to Sanctioned Suicide , I'm sorry that your debilitating OCD-gardening (particularly soil obsessions) had brought you here . I can imagine you running around , holding your head between your arms , and screaming to the skies: "I need that ash woooooooood!" .
It really looks lovely , and quite a nice loot
I'd go crazy and do real commando planting -- flip soil inside and stick a plant X 10 . Bang it inside and throw it to the side
Lol you'll be happy to know I'm learning about horticultural soil, composting and wormeries now. Hahahaha fits my OCD perfectly. Remember, I was an archaeologist so I can tell the difference between dark grey brown sandy loam and dark brown grey silty loam.Pictures show quite a 'failure' there ....
Welcome to Sanctioned Suicide , I'm sorry that your debilitating OCD-gardening (particularly soil obsessions) had brought you here . I can imagine you running around , holding your head between your arms , and screaming to the skies: "I need that ash woooooooood!" .
It really looks lovely , and quite a nice loot
I'd go crazy and do real commando planting -- flip soil inside and stick a plant X 10 . Bang it inside and throw it to the sideApologies if this is becoming a blog, if it's not interesting just don't read it, otherwise...
Today myself and my brother went on a little expedition to liberate a really nice wrought iron bench from the derelict allotment where it had been discarded.
We failed
The bench wasn't there. Maybe someone else had beaten us to it or maybe I got the wrong allotment and it was on the other one that's actually owned by someone. Anyway, no bench.
So we explored. He pointed out all the species of shrub and tree I might be able to get samples from. We found the shed with a home-made tiny wood burning stove in it, which was duly liberated.
Also, a five foot slate mantle (which I'll have to go back for), some cuboid granite blocks and various other bits and pieces including water drums, and a nice table.
The star of the show was a four foot wide iron drum full of water that my brother wants to bring back and put in my back yard as a big garden.
Problems...first we'd have to drain the water. It's too heavy to tilt so it would have to be bucketed or siphoned and I'm not being the poor sod on the end of that rubber hose! The water is filthy and full of iron rust. Then we'd have to get it out of the overgrown allotment and up a hill then somehow back to the house. It would take a team and would potentially be dangerous. Then we'd have to get it over the wall into the yard somehow... Same problem.
And there is no space there, it's full of wheelie bins and firewood. And where would we get that much soul for a big garden? And what about the winter, I'd end up with a stagnant iron pot full of filth!
I said no, but I'm actually still tempted.
I used to have a wildlife pond and a particular fondness of big plants, so a huge big garden really appeals.
Navigating out of the allotments, I out my foot through a rotten board and fell. I nearly couldn't get up again. My knees have way and I remembered I have to stop crawling around these places like I'm a teenager, I just don't have the stability or strength I used to have.
We also found a huge six foot granite lintel in the open allotment field. Another tempting project to retrieve it, but no idea how. A project of Stonehenge proportions!
Oh and I thought we were getting the bench for my brother. Turns out we were getting it for me, but as there's no room left in the yard, I wouldn't be able to have the bench we failed to retrieve anyway.
Then I was still quite motivated, so I headed out into the woods for a walk and an explore.
The houses above the woods were built to face it, with a track Infront of them, which has long since eroded away. So now the front of the houses has become the back and the back opens onto the later road. It's a bit odd. The upshot is that they have extensive gardens that back onto and spill over into the woods. It's a fantastic place to get garden plants that have escaped and become naturalised as woodland plants. There are even bits of the woodland that the locals have cultivated as a semi wild area.
So I had an explore and managed to snag two bags of plants, mostly geraniums but also some Lords and Ladies (a nice arum).
I also, finally, found a good source of excellent loam topsoil.
Moles.
The area is scattered with mole hills. The industrious little buggers have excavated tossed out garden soil from deep down and built their little hills out of it. There's more than enough of it for my needs and I don't even need to dig for it! Thank you moles!
Today I returned to The Bunker exhausted but satisfied.
I used to have adventures in my life that consisted of beer and fast cars and faster women.
Now my adventures are trying to figure out how to drag back non portable objects to my cave and stealing soil from small blind mammals.Last edited:
Myforevercharlie
Guilt and Regret
- Feb 13, 2020
- 3,233
I really like reading these updates, bit like an open diary thanks for sharing!Cool. I find it therapeutic to share, but if it annoys anyone, as I say, just don't read it. I promise I won't post every little detail, but today was kinda interesting for me.
Quarky00
Enlightened
- Dec 17, 2019
- 1,956
You're sticking it us. Sticking it!
Quarky is getting annoyed by yarden.
Sensible potatoes choose their soil with caution.You're sticking it us. Sticking it!
Quarky is getting annoyed by yarden.
Sensible potatoes choose their soil with caution.
Hahaha I showed you the pics of my old gardens didn't I?I found watercress in the woods and orchids in the back field! Orchids!
Quarky00
Enlightened
- Dec 17, 2019
- 1,956
I forgot my camera last time I went into the woods. I need to take a pic of the skunk cabbage and post it. I've found even more, all planted by my brother thirty years ago. They are all over the place.Wild orchids wow
I'll take binoculars too then I can zoom in on plants without having to go and investigate, as I normally do a lot of falling over, sliding about, getting wet and swearing.
