Landscaping Project.

Thanks for all the kind words guys.. i think this thread is gonna be a good few years before it's over.

Bit of new i might aswell add..

There was two wire fences at the back of the garden between us and the farmers feild we took our side down although it was not on our property we needed to clear the land of all the shit previous tenant had dump over the past 50 years.. we intended to plant large shrubs and trees but didn't want to spend too much incase the famer objected. The original farmer died last year and the feild has over grown somewhat but his son came round on the tractor (a brand new John Deer) on Sunday inspecting his grazing field.. was a bit worried he'd mention the fence, Today he has installed a new barbed wire fence infront of his own so i guess we can do what we like on our side now. Has incresed the garden by 2 meters.

will still treat it as not mine but will spend a bit more on plants now that the boundarys have been definded properly.

While i'm here does anyone know of a sure way to kill redants?? i dont think i've got "Imported fire ants" just the normal small uk ones.. but they are everywhere i turn. I kill one nest and find two. I must have about 10-15 small nests in the garden.

I've tried Borax mixed with Sugar they ate it but still they are here, I've treid Peanut Butter and Borax and they didn't take any notice. at the moment i'm using Doff ant powder and hot water. it's doing the trick at keeping them at bay but i know i wont be killing all the queens and reckon in a month i'll be back to sqaure one.

The current meathord of killing them is okey for now.. but when i have a nice flat new lawn i dont want to be putting ant powder and boiling water on it.

any cultral or envromental solution would be welcome.. failing that if you know of a Chemical one that is garenteed to sort it id love to know.

Eggy

Couldn't work out why the farmer had put one strip of barbed wire on the new boundary last week.. it's about 1.5m high. Had me thinking he'll come back and put another strip lower down cuz the sheep will just walk under it...

anyway got the fright of my life last night when this girl and about 6 of her friends were looking in at me in the garden.



my little ones are gonna love this.

Does anyone know why farmers keep such a small herd of cows? is it just to keep the grass under control?

Eggy

What do you mean by a small herd? 7 cows is a very nice herd if you are not doing big scale commercial exploration of milk/meat.
7 cows will keep grass under control, give a couple of youngsters every year and a steady supply of milk everyday.
How pastoral is that? Growing the sacred herb while the sacred cows watch it all.

Yeah only about 6-7 of them.. it was hard to count as i was running for a camera, this was the only one still about when i came back. I could here all the dogs up the street going mad as the went by.

The Farmer normally has sheep for wool in the back feild but he died last year and assume his son has taken over the business.. i'm liking the new neighbours though.

there is nothing like country life

Looks like a nice space to play with mate,

You could screen off an area for a greenhouse and potting shed?

Whoever suggested raised beds, i made some very inexpensively in my old yard and it was great for disposing of soil from indoor, and had some massive potato plants in them.

Best of luck with the project anyway.

like the progress your making i have decked my garden and dug a pond in the last month to parra to put it on here... good luck with the rest of it hard work proper gardening cant stop once im in to it

Got your work cut out there Eggy mate...

Petrol & fire for the ants?

Keep up the good work

Thanks guys!

Got a Big Bag 'O Sand out the front of the house that i've got to get down the garden this weekend to finish the shed base.

Also got the Mother of all "Domestic" chainsaws in the shed to chop down the big dead tree near the shed that i'm moving... I'm a bit scared of it though and need the owner to come show me what to do.. he's a Copper so will need to hide my plants form him lol.

I choped one part (Double trunked) of the tree down with an Axe last year but it took me a hell of a long time.

Hopefully it'll give me a fair amount of fire wood for the wintre.

Will get a Photo updat this weekend things are coming along.. have a grafted Lilac "Canada Girl" to plant into the nomans land.. It doesn't look much at the moment but should look great in flower next year.

Looks like a fun project! Just started digging a new bed in preparation for a nice winter veggie garden

A quick update.

The sand has all been leveled (this was harder than i thought).. now we are just trying to get the bits of reclaimed slabs in place before we start to mix the mortor.



Big thanks to Lizzy.. she has put a lot of work into this.

Eggy

Hello good people of IC,

i've been away for a few weeks so thought i'd better update this thread.

All the paving is finished and looking pretty good.. i'm just waiting for the mortar to cure properly before i give it a good clean with a stiff broom. I dont have a picture yet of the finished work but here a pic showing 90% of the slabs in place.



I've marked out were the boundry of the veggi patch will be and starting to prepare the gound inbetween for sowing some grass. want to take my time and choose the right mix for the lawn. I've been looking at a Low maintenace mix without rye grass which is fairly hard waring but still has some nice variaties in it:

70% sheeps fescue
20% red fescue
10% bentgrass

Will update with some more recent pics on the progress later.

Now just some general garden shots.

A little tomatoe plant.


I've got 8 monster plants down the garden which i experimented with.. I planted them in 20litre containers and topped them like you would MJ to get bushy plants.... I wont be doing this again, they look a mess and are very hard to keep under control.

The Verbena's are looking really nice in flower and the bees love them.. but they dont suit the bed they are in so will over winter them where they are and lift them in sping and put them else where. I'm really pleased with them on the whole.. the seeds cost £2.00 and were a buger to germ and the establish but well worth the effort, my local garden centre sells them for £6.00 each and they are no where near the size of mine.. a good investment IMO.




Brought a French Lavener which is a bit worse for wear.. have attempted to clone it to get some free plants for next year. Two of the clones have taken and the others are forming masive calluses so fingers crossed i should get at least 8 new plants.




And Finally.. i was at a local boot sale and couldn't resist this, they had a few more that were more suitable to the garden (15mm mesh) but i have a plastic one of those already and the workmanship of this one is amazing.. I'm not sure how old it is but it's built to last. I would have brought both but they were £5.00 each and i'm always skint.



anyhow hope you enjoyed the update.. more will follow shortly.

Eggy

Nice update!

Nice work Eggy

I am big on gardening myself and I really enjoy following your thread. I just wanted to know, what is that thing on your last pic? I'm super curious, haven't seen one before

Anyways, good luck with your project and I hope you will reach whatever goals you may have, before the winter kicks in..

McTore

Top update Eggy....Nice sieve as well. I've been looking at them on ebay but I think I'll try the car boot at the weekend.

Hey McTor... as RD said it's a sive for grading soil/compost.

here some photos as of last night.

The Stump. you cant really tell from the photo but this is the remains of a stump i used for chopping fire wood. was probably 2feet accross. here i'm burning charcoal on it, a methord i heard some guys using in the US although i've built many big fires on it and the thing is still around.. will see tonight how this did??


The Finished Paving.
All recycled from the crap i found in the garden.. even the concrete hardcore base [hand smashed]



Cows watching me work.


this will be the bit seeded.




Thanks everyone for following.. i wasn't sure how it would go down on IC.. I'm too busy to join another forum for gardening and you guys are full of knowlege when it comes to green thing.

Eggy

Good thread mate, I'm enjoying watching things progress. I hear you on being too busy to join a gardening forum, too busy on IC me. I've looked at gardening forums and can't decide which one to join....

I'd love to get stuck into that digging Eggy. My Bulldog spade would rip though that soil.

Big up mate.

Hey RD just been looking at bulldog tools website.. might have to get some new additions with my birthday money.. although an 11litre metal watering can in first on the list.

I just want to point out that the green spade in the picture is not mine (Im a tool snob).. it brought it as a guest spade from wilko.. the thing is so blunt its it's laughable. I i've brought a nice wooden/stainless spade form Draper which is nice.

Last year i got a set of DeWit hand tools but the things are a fecking nightmare to keep clean as they are carbon steel.. come with a lifetime garentee though. But my best buy to date is a set of Felco No.2's they are the bollocks!

Heres a pic a bed i planted up at the front of the house. can't remember what the grassy thing is but it's semi evergreen.. the other thing around the front was one plant i divided so hopefully it'll fill out, will get the names and edit later. I'm sure we all know Pyracanta, Aucuba japonica & Euphobia. Theres also a few clumps of white crocus's dotted around but we wont see them till the end of winter.

Should look nice once it's filled out.

Nice progress bud! Going to be a little spot of eden when you have it all finished. And hopefully we'll get a nice summer to match next year

Phew.. have spent the last week double digging (bastard trenching) the area that i would like to get seeded before the weather gets too cold.

For those of you who dont know what i mean by double digging this is the process.

1. Remove top soil to a spades depth of first trench and place to one side.
2. Fork over sub soil to the forks depth.
3. Add organic matter (Manuer/Compost). I've also added general purporse ferts 7-7-7
4. Mix the above with sub soil.
5. Remove the second trench top soil and put on top of trench No.1
6. Follow the whole process unitl complete, the top soil from trench No.1 will be placed on the last trench.

This is done to ensure and even dig though out the site and avoids pockets being missed, it bloody hard work hence the victorian term "Bastard Trenching"

some pics.






some new additions.


Again i cant remember the names of the grass or the bamboo but will edit them when i get the chance, these will be left in the pots untill spring before placed in their final sites yet to be chosen.


Have decided on the seed i'm going to buy, It's a hard wearing lawn mix with Rye Grass. I wasn't to keen on it at first but after some advice from the vendor (35+ years in the business) he suggested that if i have young children then it will give me the best results. He said that Rye Grass has a bad name for it's self due to the old varitys used many tears ago (and still in my current lawn), Moden dwarfing varitys are smother and slower growing.. Their mix is almost identical to a well known of the shelf brands Premium Mix but at much lower cost. They also sujested sowing at a rate of 70g/M2 which is much higher than i would normally do but was assured it would result in a thicker more even lawn in a shorter space of time, and concidering the out lay for my small space isn't large would be money well spent.

This is what the mix consits of:
Hard Wearing Lawn with ryegrass
(50%)certified Esquire dwarf perennial ryegrass
(20%)certified slender creeping red fescue
(20%)certified red fescue
(10%)certified common bentgrass

Thanks again for all the support and intrest.

Eggy