Green Manure

The raised beds have come to fruition in our garden and are now sprouting their first crop, a green manure from mustard seeds. The seedlings are now big enough to see from the house, a few days ago, you struggled to see them.
In our garden revamp E and I decided to grow more vegetables- trouble is our garden subsoil is pure sand, dig about 18 inches and the "soil" turns a bright yellow. (Once, when digging a hole for a gatepost, I did not have enough sand to make some concrete, so used some of the sand from the hole- worked a treat!)

So this makes growing vegetables and almost anything else a bit of a struggle, especially during very dry spells of weather. This lead us to thinking about raised beds. We ended up with a plan for four of them, and after careful searching local timber yards and on the internet we decided on 4ft by 8 ft (1.2m by 2.4m approx) beds, and the wood chosen was 7cm by 26cm high. (3 inch by 10 inch approx) which should last a fair while. One of the beds is double height, 52cm (for long tap rooted veg or ones that need to be buried deeply such as leeks or potatoes) and needed about a tonne of topsoil to fill it.

Of course being so thick and wide, the timbers (2.4 m long)  weigh about 40 kilos each, so our venerable trolley/porters barrow, was pressed in to service to wheel them in to place. This was the ultimate sacrifice as the small castor wheels gave up the ghost and shed their bearings and the main wheels started to wobble a lot. We have had the trolley at least 20 years and it cost us all of £10 to £12 I think. So a replacement was ordered from Amazon, this duly arrived (now costing £22) and needed hand assembley which was fine.

First used yesterday and I struggled with it to haul some small paving slabs. I was very surprised when comparing the new trolley to the old one, discovering it was about two thirds the size, and the handle was considerably shorter than the old one, which was why it was hard work.
So its not just Waggon Wheel biscuits that have got smaller over the years!

So a revamp for the old trolley is planned - the new one will be used as a sack barrow for compost and bird seed bags, and the old one will once revamped go back to being the workhorse.

Once the green manure crop is big enough, it will be dug in and we will then plant up with either quick growing crops or overwintering ones as we have missed part of the growing season already.

To Cupress or not Cupress

Today has started in the garden with a large tree lopping tool and a garden saw.

We are blessed (!) with two cupressus hedges either side of our back garden that were out of control when we moved here a decade ago. Through borrowing a (not very sharp) chain saw from a neighbour, I managed to get the height down to about 8 to 10ft tall, for both hedges, and continued to trim up the sides on a regular basis.
The problem is that cupressus don't stand still- you blink and they are 15ft tall again. One hedge faces on to a green with walnut and horse chestnut trees, planted by the original householders when this small estate was built, so it only causes a nuisance to the local authority grass cutters who wizz around on large multibladed powered lawn mowers.

The other hedge bounds on a neighbours garden, and was heavily lopped and trimmed a few years back before the present neighbours moved in.

Last year we had an extension built on the side of the house in a largely dead space and some of the hedge had to come down (hurray!) to make way for the scaffolding, but because of the building work and (also to save money we fitted out most of the interior ourselves) the garden took a back seat.

Of course aformentioned cupressus hedges have taken full advantage of this and have outdone themselves in growth and because they are so wide , I can no longer safely reach from either side on ladders or platforms, to cut the top growth down, so the decision is that they will have to go!

Now this in itself is a mammoth task , and there are some garden hazards - sheds, oil tank, greenhouse, existing flower beds , dog - yes Rosie likes to help or get in the way depending on your viewpoint -and also I had to recently construct a new higher dog proof fence to keep her in the garden on the green side (she can leap 5 ft in the air from standing, no need for a run up for her) so this needs protecting also.

                                            Rosie sitting still for a change.

We are reluctant to remove the hedge in many ways- it does provide sound proofing qualities, and cuts down the wind, it is a haven for birds, not so much for nesting, but as a shelter and transit point from garden to green, but it also badly shades the lawn - we have the best moss for miles around - and sucks up all the water from the soil underneath, so nothing wants to grow.

So today I started to tackle two trees who's branches had overgrown the oil tank, and also encroached severely on an overgrown  flower bed. This has just been dug over for re-planting and I discovered the bed  had been much wider originally than it is now, by maybe 5 or 6 ft. , as the edging continues under the hedge.

Having cut/lopped the side branches off, I am about to bring out the trusty chain saw (mine, not the neighbours) to progressivly cut down the trunks.
At least it's pleasant out and not raining, thats something to be positive about.

It will be a stage by stage gradual lessening/removal of the hedges so more at a later date(s)

Whats in a name?

Racing Thrush came about a few years ago as an idea and was used for a while as a web name for genealogy research in to my family. The name derives from the first year in our current house after planting raspberry canes in the hope of getting fresh fruit straight from the garden.

The thrushes knew better!

Each morning at breakfast time we watched the thrushes and fledgling thrushes searching through the canes looking for the freshest fruit-each one acrobatically leaping a few feet off the ground and grabbing a piece of raspberry,consuming it and leaping for more.

If we wanted to pick the fruit before the birds we had to "Race Thrushes" and get there first. It has been ever thus- we still have to race thrushes, sometimes they win, sometimes we do.
I could cover the plants in netting, but I want the birds to enjoy the garden as much as I do, so it's a case of live and let live.