Bags, buckets and pots

 I like to use different things in our garden, this container was purchased for a flower pot, but it works better as a water bowl, the birds love to land on the pebbles for a drink, I have other places they use for bathing.

This is another lovely spot, I'm using a square washing up bowl for my water plant, the old sink is my grass bed and the birdbath is now an alpine garden, with a couple metal chickens, it's a lovely view. The triple acers behind and the red and white flowers of the azalea make it colourful.

Hosta's when in the ground are decimated by slugs and snails, these live happily in the bucket and an old brass coal bucket, I have the extra copper ring around the plant, whilst these are in leaf they need to be away from walls as snails do try every trick to get to them.

In the greenhouse I have two buckets with carrots growing, they will be popped outside soon, two compost bags full ready for tomatoes, I know one has a cucumber pot resting on top for now, To the left is a BBQ bucket, re-purposed for my Aloe Vera, and on the right two huge plant saucers for my sphagnum moss.  

This year I am trying harder with veg, my new raised beds are great, but as always I want to grow more, so here on the path by the greenhouse and tucked behind the raised bed is a compost bag with some sweetpeas, the grey tub has a mock orange in, both of these should fill this back corner with colour. Two bags with second early potatoes and a big pot with some peas in, which is on an old water-but stand. 

The green square bowl has a cranberry plant in it, I got it last year, not sure what I am doing, along with trying to grow peanuts (Monkey nuts), I do like to try new things. 

The weather for most of the week has been dry, just one wet day on Monday, we have seen sunshine, but a rather cold northern wind has kept me inside, alongside another horrible dry cough, so another boring post. 

I've always used different containers for growing in and decoration around the flower section of the garden, now I have my veg section my containers don't need to be pretty, just practical, I am filling any space I have, luckily hubby does not come up around the greenhouse much, he hates having to step over pots and other things. I need to leave space for my tomato plants, I have grown them before in the greenhouse, they do get far to big for the space. 

Most can be tucked away in the cooler months and give me back my space for other items, it's the best of both worlds, allowing me more growing room whilst I need it. 

Repurpose

 I have spend loads of money finishing off our new layout garden getting the veg section sorted,  normally when in the garden I do like to reuse bits, I also save stuff, just in case. I have had some small black fencing left over from around my butlers sink with my grasses in, having stored these for ages, I am now using here in the front of this rhubarb bed.

I had these bigger loops in the bed, I purchased them for the back of my now rhubarb bed 3 years ago and then used them in my tall raised bed, I then put them in the front of my rhubarb bed, but they did not look right, too tall. Sunday I used hubby's hacksaw and cut off the loops, I can now use these as cloche frames, I was going to purchase some to make a run, I already have netting or fleece, these are the perfect height to protect my seedlings and will make a nice run.

I love lights in the garden, neither of these lamps were cheap, both are years old and I've had good service from them, but the solar tops have gone, rather than purchase new lamps, I have got these smaller ones and popped them inside a very cheap way to prolong the lives of the lamps. 

I have the underside of our old outside round table as half hoops, the chains holding up the nets are from cheap hanging baskets, the baskets I cut the outer ring off and use them upside down to protect my young plants, purchased from B&Q years ago, again much cheaper than cloches.

All my raised beds were made from our decking planks, which only had been down a few years, hubby used wood from the frame to join every bit together, he even reused the screws. he made more into raised beds for our neighbours, the rest of the planks are beside my greenhouse, just in case.

My ponds were made reusing containers and pebbles I already had, sadly I did waste money on a pond liner, which did not work. I am always looking at what I have, as much as I can spend loads in the garden, I do love a bargain or a recycle and as I have said, I throw very little away. 

The one main thing I now do is when purchasing new I buy quality, for years I got cheap obelisks, which maybe lasted 2 years, this time we paid much more for ours and they are solid and will last years. I tried to save money going for a bargain, but it's not cheap over time. 

My biggest savings is to purchase off Facebook market place, I have had many bargains over the years, I prefer second hand bits to new stuff outside. I got most of my clay pots from one person who was clearing their grans greenhouse, I also love old chimneys, which I reuse as planters.

What's you best garden recycle. 

Sunshine and sandals

 Friday, Saturday and Sunday I wore sandals they were sunny warm days, I'm back in socks and shoes now the cooler weather is back, I do love having my toes out, hopefully the warm days will return soon. It was so good for my soul to sit outside listen and watch the tiny birds, slowly relaxing for more than one day.

Saturday we had a BBQ, daughter came with her 3 children, daddy was working, 1st BBQ of the year is special, and we could all sit around our new bigger table. Hubby has a new spot to cook from as we use the new garden layout, still loads of room for the children to run about. We sat outside for ages, listening to the little ones laughter, Will checked out my wildlife ponds and agreed they looked good, still waiting for frogs. 

The tulips in my cider jar are looking good, the two red ones have been blooming for days, I can't wait for the others to bloom, these were a pack of mixed colour frilly ones, planted with some tall snowdrops. The tulips have done much better than the snowdrops, this photo is taken from the back of the garden, it sits behind the railings in my veg section, but can be clearly seen from the house and our seating area.

Molly randomly asked mummy if she could ride a horse, we don't know where she got the idea from, we don't have any interaction with horses. So she had a trial on a lovely Shetland pony, she patted and brushed the pony before riding. Quickly daughter could see Molly was not enjoying herself, and when Dinky did a poo whilst she was riding, Molly was very unhappy, she does not want another go.

I have finished importing all my post for 2022 into my book, it is a lot of work, I do enjoy the process, 183 pages, I did 168 post, so a few went over 2 pages, I have checked the placing of headers, titles and dates, to ensure they are all looking right, I have also checked the spelling. Now I need to read each page and have a final check of the layout and it will be ready for printing, which won't happen until they offer a great discount, normally in November on Black Friday.

Every day I do a bit outside in our garden and say that's it for now, and the following day I find more to do, Friday I did loads outside, we had lunch outside enjoying the sunshine, Saturday was a day off, family time, they went home just after 3pm, so relaxing time for hubby and I. Sunday I did not do much outside, a short time was spent in my greenhouse, the rest of the day was on here and knitting, I have finished one side of the jacket. Monday was another day at home, we did not pop into town, back to another wet blustery day and much cooler, I did some housework in the morning and I chatted with my sister in the afternoon, we often chat on a Monday.

I have an aching back again, a mixture of gardening and playing with George and Molly, and just for a change I have another cough, which is irritating me already, I hope I can shift it quickly. We are now half way through April, how quickly this month and year is going, days seam long and leisurely, but weeks, months fly by. 

Improvement

Taken late last summer, this was the last photo before the changes made in our garden, it does look lovely, until you try to use the space. The big decking is a perfect family space other than flies and smells coming from next door, the decking is higher, the paving path is another different height, the lawn had loads of odd angles and was lower.

Photo taken last week from the same place, everywhere is the same level, the flower bed at the back of the lawn is now clearly seen from the sitting room, the veg beds behind are seen but the railings put them in a different part of the garden. The lawn is smaller as we made the paving outside the patio doors wider and made it into a rectangle. 

We have a new table, hubby saw it online at a bargain price, it goes with our original chairs and bench and can be made bigger when family arrive. I now have less pots in this area, over winter some cracked and I've not replaced them, only herbs around here and near the back door and handy for use.

Here is the plan I drew up, we did change one spot, the path along the garage we decided to run it down to the house, making the lawn not so wide and removing the corner inset in the lawn. We also paved all the way to the garage. In this plan the lawn does look much bigger, the plan is not to any true scale. 

Having spend a lot of money on the refit, plus we did loads of hard work ourselves, we were chatting, did we get what we wanted, hoped for, value for money spent. This was all done for me, hubby wanted to remove the decking and nothing more, I knew our garden was huge, and we were not using it all, I hoped for veg beds, my growing space and plenty of family space so three little ones could run around and play outside. 

Our first thoughts are we are both happy with the finished design, and the standard of work done, our landscaper made suggestions, which we took on board, after all he is the expert, he digested my plan, understood what we wanted, and created it and all on one level. I have done work before in the garden and then later changed it, no chance of that here, sitting on the patio side of the garden last summer helped us to see how we can now use all of the area. My growing area, which we can close off when the children are here, is perfect, we made the veg beds as big as we could, ensuring the paths between were not to tight, reusing everything from the decking. I am excited to be growing vegetables, I have most everything I need. One sad note as I looked through my garden purchase list, so much of my seeds and bits came from Wilko's, I am missing their shop in town, Wilko seeds are sold at The Range, but the store is not local. 

I have had comments about how tidy the garden looks, I'm outside every time I can be, even on cold days, I don't pop out when it's raining, we have a cat and she use the flower beds, Grace is getting older, so I do need to go out and clear up after her regularly. We have lots of different beds, so it is easy to tidy a bed quickly, I am always picking up leaves and bits, I adore dead heading when needed, it always leads to more blooms. Our garden is my healing place and my work in retirement.