 Lots of Snow Friends Like a lot of people recently we have been hit by large snow falls, no of power and a subsequent lack of broadband.  The lack of power did not matter too much during the day as we spent all the day light hours digging ourselves out. I don't know how many tons of snow it was but the depth of snow varied from 30 cm to over a metre.  Digging the snow Eventually after two days worth of digging – around ¼ km our neighbour a farmer was able to finish off digging the track as he had finished digging cars out on the main road.  Cleared Track Well we are now catching up with things, which includes writing reviews of books I have read over the last few days, some of which by candle light.
It all looks very alpine now, with the sun shining on the snow but that is for another entry
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Friends Even though the weather does not seem like it, spring has sprung and the snowdrops are popping up all over the place. It is thought that the Romans brought Snowdrops Galanthus to the UK  The snowdrop grows from a small bulb, producing slender leaves about 15 cm long, and flower stalks ending in a solitary white flower with three spreading outer petals which are larger and more convex than the three inner ones. The flower is milky-white, as indicated by its scientific name, Galanthus (Greek,gala= milk,anthos= flower). There are green markings on the inner petals, which are used as a means of identification.  Snowdrops @ Trostrie They grow freely in the wild; but 'wild' snowdrops seem to be garden escapees. It is generally thought that, if you find snowdrops growing wild in the middle of a wood, you can be almost certain that there was once a dwelling there. Snowdrops are generally spread by birds scratching the soil, dispersing the bulbs.  Snowdrops @ Trostrie So the fact that we have then growing in an overgrown area of the garden by a flattened area indicates that there used to be buildings there.  Snowdrops @ Trostrie All they are is really sign posts that are telling us that the daffodils will be out soon.
This is my ad hoc update and diary describing our garden at Trostrie Cottage in Galloway. You can see the garden for yourself if you book a self catering holiday @The Shieling which is attached to Trostrie Cottage http://www.trostriecottage.co.uk/ Friends With a garden that has been around for a number of years and had numerous owners, each person will have made their own alterations to the landscape, and form of it. Pauline decided that she wanted a flat area where she could sit and look at the view, whilst at the same time enjoy the sunshine. Looking around the garden we identified somewhere between seven and ten areas that were flat and had previously either had a building on them, or were some form of paved floor, but sadly none were quite in the right place.  Old Paving Stones So we decided to make our own. We would recycle some paving slabs from one of the other areas that we would not use The place Pauline decided that was ideal had a bit of stone wall to one side and the wire fence to the neighbouring field to the other  Site of Paulines Perch To make an area large enough we needed to build up one corner  Stones for foundations Fortunately there are lots of stones around which can be used as filler foundation  Check to see if level It is good to make sure all is level  Well almost level well just about  Clearing the final bits of undergrowth Pauline hard at work clearing space for the last slabs to go down  Almost finished Just got the steps up to the perch to finish off  The end result The end result. Just now need some sun to enjoy sitting on it, and a nice cuppa  This is my ad hoc update and diary describing how I am developing our garden at Trostrie Cottage in Galloway. You can see the garden for yourself if you book a self catering dog friendly holiday @The Shieling which is attached to Trostrie Cottage http://www.trostriecottage.co.uk/
Friends Those of you who know me will have seen that I like lawns with straight lines, not quite bowling greens but getting on that way, so it is quite a challenge to let an area of grass go wild – hopefully into a wildflower lawn (but that is for the future).  Plan of fruit trees In part of this wild area we have decided to plant a small number of fruit trees. 13 so I think it counts as a small orchard. It will be a mixture of pears, apples, plums and damsons. The layout can be seen from the very rough plan.  Marking out - with peg and string  Marking out - with peg and string Firstly we had to mark out where the trees would go  Digging the hole for the roots Then dig the holes  Four holes dug - nine to go! The 8 trees we planted this time came from Walcot Organic Nursery www.walcotnursery.co.uk, as bare root trees. They were very efficient, phoning us up to arange delivery, and the trees arrived when they said they would. All the trees were in good condition, except for one which had had it's very top broken off, presumably in transport, but that was no real problem. (They were certainly in much better condition than ones we ordered from another so called famous nursery, that arrived seriously damaged, so much so that it had to be replaced) Anyway we are not talking about them.  Putting in the stake Though it did say in the instructions that staking was not necessary, we thought we would stake these, and not the remaining 5 just to compare as it is quite a windy spot.  Adding the mycorrhizal fungi We added mycorrhizal fungi to the hole before planting the tree. Finally adding a rabbit guard around the base of the tree to help protect it.  Ahh - Cuppa Green Tea Finally getting a well earned cuppa.
This is my ad hoc update and diary describing how I am developing our garden at Trostrie Cottage in Galloway. You can see the garden for yourself if you book a self catering dog friendly holiday @The Shieling which is attached to Trostrie Cottage. Friends The sun shone last Saturday, and so it was a good day to be out in the garden. Sadly it was rather cold, freezing in fact so my 3 tonnes of stone and gravel remained in their pile as I could not move it. It was frozen as lump. So do something else.  I don't know if you watch Time Team on TV, I do some times and often on the first day of their excavations they put the spoil in a pile, only by the end of the day realising that the pile is just where they want to now dig, so it has to be moved. Well I sort of have the same problem with one of the piles of cleared garden rubbish waiting to be burnt.  Having started marking and putting up the fencing for the new vegetable plot  I realise that the wood pile is just where the corner of the vegetable plot will be. I must say that I did not put the pile there originally but inherited it with the house. Though we have now burnt several cubic metres of garden waste, there are still many more to go, so maybe those beds will be the last to be used.  As the sun was out we thought we would have a look at the pond, which is next to the new veg bed. The pond is roughly a figure of eight, with a small island in one of the water areas. As can be seen from the images sadly it is a bit neglected.  In places the liner has rucked up, we think we will put some stones over those areas to hide the plastic  In other areas it is quite silted up and will need clearing out. I think it will make a good project that is not too strenuous, everything else so far seem to be and a positive distraction from more boring hard graft. Like shifting sub base, or digging vegetable beds.
This is my ad hoc update and diary describing how I am developing our garden at Trostrie Cottage in Galloway. You can see the garden for yourself if you book a self catering dog friendly holiday @The Shieling which is attached to Trostrie Cottage http://www.trostriecottage.co.uk/  Friends I was going to write this yesterday but the heavy snow caused the power and our broadband to flicker so much that I thought it prudent to turn everything off and resort to paper and a pencil – more on that later.  Sunrise at Trostrie This is my ad hoc update and diary describing how I am developing our garden at Trostrie Cottage in Galloway. You can see the garden for yourself if you book a self catering dog friendly holiday @ The Shieling which is attached to Trostrie Cottage http://www.trostriecottage.co.uk/  Bonfire The day started with a fantastic fire red sunrise and was an inspiration to get out into the garden even though it was so cold  Bonfire As it was so cold, and there is so much to burn I thought it would be good to have another bonfire. This is fire number four and it still does not look as if any has been burnt, from the two piles. Maybe next time I will try to make it a bit larger and see if I can get rid of enough to actually make an impression on the piles waiting to be burnt.  Marking out the fence line Having got the fire going well I started to try and put in the new line of fence posts that will define the new vegetable plot. - Yes that is one of the piles waiting to be burnt in the back ground right in the middle of the new plot.  Fence post Sadly the ground was so hard due to the ice that I could not really get the posts into the ground so I spent time pacing the plot out, and working out where the new beds will go.  Plan of the new vegetable plot The plot will be fairly formal in shape, to contrast the rest of the garden as it is very informal. It will have four inner beds for rotating crops and four external beds for static crops, and four triangular central beds for herbs. Well that is the current idea, of course it can change. The size you ask. The external fence to try and keep out the rabbits will be roughly 11 paces by 14 paces.
The only major problem is that I do have to get the rubbish that is in the way burnt before I can do much more to this, but that is for another day.  A number of years ago I started a blog on the work and progress I did on the garden at Fell View Kielder. Then due to blog host changes, and work commitments at the time I stopped recording what I did. Over time several friends, Marion & Colin especially said I should start doing this again, but I did not bother. Well now I have a new garden to work on, not that the garden is new, but new to us. I thought it would be good to record our progress. Also we were given these mugs which helped inspire me to get writing.  Trostrie garden looking west If you are like me then you like looking at plans to place where things are, well I am afraid this time you are going to be disappointed, but I will say the garden has some well established areas, and some a bit more wild.  Trostrie garden looking south These three pictures are looking west, south and east respectively  Trostrie garden looking east Over the more established area of garden in front of the house  New gate attached to old stone wall The previous owner has two lively dogs and she was very worried in case they escaped so the main area of the garden was very well fenced in. Well we do not have a dog and after a very short time realised that we needed a new access gate, so we did not have to go all the way round the house to get out of the garden.  Putting down the sub base for the path The first thing I did was put in a single person gate. On clearing the undergrowth it became clear that there had originally been a gate there before, but it had been nailed up. The sides of the path were defined by gravel boards, and the base for the path was sub-base. We have had a delivery of around 6 tons to make a start on the paths.  Second gate going in Having put the first gate and path in I needed to connect it up with the next one, rather than just walking across some very rough ground  Bonfire When I needed a rest from the sub-base moving, we started the process of burning the two massive bonfires of waste material that there is. The trouble is this is very wet and does not burn that easily. As soon as I turned my back on the bonfire and went back to moving the stone it went out.
Who knows maybe the plans will be in the next installment of this blog. You can see the garden for yourself if you book a self catering dog friendly holiday @ The Shieling which is attached to Trostrie Cottage http://www.trostriecottage.co.uk/ |
Tim Fuller
Dyslexic doodles on photography, food (growing, cooking & of course eating), faith and other fascinating things. This is a personal blog expressing my views. Archives
November 2015
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