seasonal depression disorder…. January 30, 2008

I have decided that I have a form of seasonal depression as after such a productive weekend I am unable to get out and do anything after work in the evenings and it makes me sad :<   I miss my soil and wheelbarrow and hammer/screwdriver while I am work being an IT bod.  pah.  Maybe I can see the call of downsizing and moving to a self sufficiency life….. :>

 For now, I will look forward to the weekend (although q busy this sat/sun) .  We have now been offered a Shed so assuming I can dismantle and transport ok – should have one back at the weekend and up sometime in the coming weeks – chickens or storage TBD!

ok, maybe overdoing it on the ‘progress update’ front…… January 28, 2008

Wot a productive weekend.  A varied mix of kid-time, gardening and woodwork/bodgeness but this weekend I did:

- Collected a ’shed load’ (ah har!!) of wood from a freecycler

- Took out around 60 nails from the main timber elements of the above

- Transported wood to the allotment area

- Constructed the best part of 3 raised-beds (see below)

- Fixed a gap in the front gate

- Took down the old side gate and cut/fixed a replacement one including with a hook to secure it from baby-wandering

- Took back old wheelbarrow and blagged a replacement (due to poor wilko-quality inner tube) 

- Went and collected 3 barrow loads of horse manure which translated to 4.5 barrow loads at home down to the allotment to be spreaded

- Finished shifting the topsoil created from turf into the raised beds

- Extended the allotment further by digging over another section for potatoes

- Moved the chicken house (with help) to a more friendly location

- Took the baby for a walk (and also a ride in the wheelbarrow)

- Baked a granny loaf cake

- Watched Babel on DVD and some cracking episodes of The Good Life (piglets being born)

- Felt quite knackered and ache-y (today)

 - Got the offer of a shed from a freecycle ‘wanted’ post!!

Blimey!

Making my own bed….. January 22, 2008

… So plants can lie in it? I decided to take a plunge and begin to transfer my lovely-home-made-from-turf-topsoil into the first rough outline of a raised bed that I’ve made.  I put 4 wheelbarrow-loads in which covered about 1.5m x 1m x about 30cm depth.  I reckon I have about another 6-8 barrow loads so hope to double up with mushroom or horsemanure compost to fill up two or three beds in total.    These will probaly need to be shallow-ish beds for things like short stubby carrots, salad, cucumbers etc etc.

Lovely feeling earth and I’m very excited.  Excellent self-sufficiency feeling to have generated top soil from turf I took up (to lay new turf which I got free from down the road).  And a good way of expanding our allotment capacity quite quickly with little work/digging – especially in our second allotment area which has naff-all topsoil and a poor base for a standard allotment area being dug over.

diversion to re-live christmas time again……and again…etc January 13, 2008

  

 The middle one is a nigeybodge.  I had the debate with her indoors about whether a nigeybodge is only a bodge if you try to do something well/right and it turns out a bit naff – or as in this case can you deliberatly set out to make something not too good and perfect and it still be classified as a nigeybodge.

little helper January 13, 2008

genius nigeygreen eyes spotted a bargin purchase in the garden center today – and rang the friendly uncle paul of the littlest dd to ask if he would be willing to buy it for her (remotly!)  excellent addition to the nigeygreen workforce. :>

 

The garden center had another good offering- seemingly excellent value on seed potatoes – £5 for a bag and we got may enough for what we need for this year….

Then the final brilliance – the nigey-green version of seeing some lovely shoes or the ‘best chocolate’ or even some football shirt or sexy sports car……  purrrrr miow woof woof.

 (Left is a tiller [like a rotavator] and right a log splitter)

sunshine and nigey-diggin January 12, 2008

Right, that’ s it. Christmas finished, weather sunny and dry…… all hands on deck to the garden to prep for 2008 season!!!! we’re quite excited now by the prospect of year 2 with a bigger plot, some experience under our belts and grand plans!! Especially fired up by Jamie Oliver program on chickens n eggs, and by progress now made in the allotment area(s) – yes – plural!!!

 So today consisted of fence building – then being able to expand the previous year’s plots again – now they should be protected from encroaching nettles, brambles, grass etc from a true nigey-bodge fence!!! Think her indoors may not actually like the fencing cos it’s quite bitty and thrown together messily!! ah well.  she came out to see but I have covered them with the weed protector!!!  Reading over my shoulder she says that it’s fine!!

Then I made progress to explore allotment area no 2 (see some of the first blog posts from last April)  – clearing the top grass, digging a little, clearing some bark and stuff as a top layer…..  bad news is that it only has an average of 2 inches of top soil – some it has zero – straight to clay/sand stone! and that the peat/soil feels pretty poor.  The good news is that it means I get to explore more woodcraftynigebodgeness with making some raised beds!!

So a great day – felt very productive.  eldest dd came out to help – littlest (at mo) dd was also out for a while this morning.  Loved the work although a rapid bit of digging up the previously-un-dug-section made me feel quite sick and heart-attacky.  :>  Decided to take it easy as a treat afterwards with a beer, in the hammock, with the moon shining and owls hooting.  nice.  :>

  

Her indoors has got out some gr8 books on self-sufficiency (from the library….!  :>)  to compliment our progress through series 1 and 2 of the good life and into series 3.  Nice input and perspectives – including the plans for a suggested 1-acre small holding which has totally taken both of our attention and become something of a not-too-distant grand vague plan.  I enjoyed a few elements of self sufficiency today with my toils – including checking the topsoil created from the extracted turf last May - lovely brown stuff and v pleased with the result.  Just need to build the beds to use it in!! Got offer of horsemanure from the farm next door and of mushroom compost from mateymikey from back home in the coming weeks!! onwards.

Nigeybuildingness – hardly any bodge at all January 8, 2008

Now-middle daughter got a Teifoc kit for her Birthday back in September.  It’s taken til now, but we managed to focus at the weekend and construct our first test piece:

 

Teifoc is some germanic or scandavian concept that is a mini-brick and cement building kit.   There are some plans for big mansions, with different roof materials, garage doors/windows etc etc.  Then when you’ve finished you can submerge the whole building in water and the cement will dissolve so that you can re-use the bricks!  We haven’t done that yet…. holding on to our first construction effort for at least a few days first…..

By the way, the first effort above is a replica of the outbuilding we have here at home.. :>

woodness – cross off jobs and finished happy 2yr old dd! January 3, 2008

Earlier post showed the work-in-progress oven.  Here is the finished article on a happy 2 yr old’s birthday.  After 2 weeks it’s not broken yet which is wicked. And although I can only really claim inspiration and project management on it (plus a bit of sanding) I’m very proud of it.  Thanks to R and to her indoors for their work on it [under my direction!!].

  

PS ticked off airing cupboard shelves, some shelves for dd’s room, cutting the legs off a table for dd’s room and some other little things….

2008 cold start.. January 3, 2008

Well new year, new vision for growth.  The planning has started for Nigeygreen – ably assisted or more accuratly ‘done’ by her indoors ‘barbara’.  Watch this space for plans unfolding.

 But Nigey-compost continues to develop nicely, with another load secured for use shortly on relevant patches of the allotment space.

 

The aforementioned allotment space was extended in Oct/Nov as per previous posts, but here’s what it’s like now (still has last years broccoli and kale there – soon to be pulled up and cleared.

 

Plus a success with a tardis/dalek like compost bin that was home to up-turned turf.  It has worked and turned into a lovely pile of top soil ready to again go with the allotment area to bolster the volume of soil.  Particularly valuable where we’ve extended I think as it’s a bit peat-y at the moment.