A microholding with a big plan

We have lived in our home for a year and a bit now. Over that time, things have changed and developed to make the cottage and garden more ours. The garden was pretty pristine when we moved in and now resembles more of a scrapyard. But, as Joe reminds me, this means that projects are happening and life is far from dull.

I thought it would be good to put in a plan for the garden now, and we can see how it develops over the next year.

I am very fond of second hand, pre used things. Whether these be things salvaged from others , skips, or bought second hand on Gumtree, I rarely buy anything new. This fits well with our lifestyle really as we don't have a flashy existence. To me, there is nothing more satistfying as making something, or making something old or broken usable. One person's rubbish really is my treasure. Our home proves that really.

Where was I...the scrapyard, sorry, garden...

Here is the plan... watch it grow....

polytunnel day 1

With the trees out of the way, we decided to push on with the pollytunnel build.

We plan to build a tunnel similar to Alans but a little bigger (10m x 4m), using scaffolding set in the the ground, then plastic water pipe for the arches.

First we marked the perimeter out with some twin and sticks, we decided to leave the tree holes and soil mound until we knew where beds and paths were going (and therefore where we have to move the soil.)

We set the corned posts in postcrete, then decided to set the rest for good measure, we then cut a bit of water pipe to have a bit of fiddle, the grease Alan recommend is very handy. After some wrangling we decided it was a good idea to have the scaffolding approximately 3ft above the ground. the road side ones we gave a good wack, but the inside ones we dug carfully so not the interfere with our houses soakaway.

We then cut the remaining bits of pipe and scaffolding, tomorrow hopefully we will install and the remainder tomorrow, some bracing and the door frames!! Bellow are a few photos of our progress.

Its extra exiting because we are only loosing about a 1m band of garden space, as the trees took up the 3m edge of the garden and made for a poor hedge with all the gaps.

Holes Dug, just add water then postcrete

Cutting the Scaffolding to size with a angle grinder

First arch in place, trail run

Rest of Pipe cut to 7m lengths.

Brian has a makeover part 2

Here is Brian in his new wipe clean format.... Don't have a before pic unfortunately...

Apple Terrine

Joe made us apple terrine this weekend...Raymond Blanc recipe on BBC food. Yum. Also some gorgeous bread....

Brian has a makeover

For a while now we have been meaning to upgrade the bed in Brian (our van) so that we can actually sleep comfortably without being squished... So we upgraded today. Started by removing the shelving which the surfboards were stored on (mainly with a drill). Then, we used the jigsaw and normal saw to remove the large wall panel (the left hand side of the first picture was our old bed space). Next, we fiddled about removing some of the shelf and added flooring to the new bed bit. We then put the wall sheet up on the side of the van, and hey presto, a bed double the size. Very excited as I have been wanting to do this for about 4 years now.......

Here is Brian in all his glory ....

THE chair

So for a while we had a chair...it became a bit of a running joke as I had decided to refurbish it...about three years ago that was!!! I am pleased to say it is now painted, waxed and I even made a new cushion cover for good measure. So one revamped chair.

Sausages!

We made sausages!
4 kg of them.....

We made some honey and mustard, Italian spiced, English seasoning and some other type.

All in all it took about 3-4 hours. This picture captures about half of the end amount...

The House of Windows

So we have had rather a lot of windows for a while now. They have survived existing in someone's house for a while, then being taken out. We weren't sure we wanted them or if we were ever going to actually get round to using them but then we got to the stage where we had owned them for too long to get rid of them. So they then survived the move to our new house, and took up residence behind the shed (they would be useful one day...)

I am pleased to say that day came! We started to make a plan as to how to build a greenhouse, and then scrapped it and decided to just attach each window to the next and see what happened! Once we had done this for a while, we needed a roof, so we got some corrugated plastic, which seems to be working a treat. We need to build a door at some point... but it is still warm and sheltered in there at the mo so the tomatoes seem happy enough.

The Cob Oven

Our cob oven is now functional!! We slowly started building it a few weeks ago however torrential rain did stop play for a while.

Joe went on a cob oven building course a while ago, so he knew what to do... I think pictures speak louder than words on this one so here are the pictures ...

There is one more layer that we need to make to insulate it, but for the moment we are using insulation for a kiln.