Tag Archives: raised beds

Tuesday 7th April 2015 – THE WIND FINALLY DROPPED THIS EVENING.

That made quite a change as we’ve had non-stop wind for the last three days or so.

All kinds of records have been broken too with the wind. For example, of all the wind energy created by the big AIR 403 wibd turbine since I reset the meter in December, 40% of it came today. And with the small wind turbine, today has doubled the previous record of wind generated.

It really was impressive but now it’s blown out and we are all quiet.

This morning, I took decisive action and ripped out all of the masking and protection on the stairs and on the landing downstairs. I gave the stairs and landing a thorough clean, sanded all of the imperfections, vacuumed it thoroughly and then gave it all a really good coat of varnish.

That took about an hour and a half in total, and so for the rest of the morning I went outside. First job was to sort out a huge pile of old cardboard that I had put on one side when I tidied the barn out the other day.

cardboard cover raised beds les guis virlet puy de dome franceWith all of that, I went down to the raised beds in the garden where I grow my crops of vegetables. Nothing is going to be done there this year, so I’ve covered over all of the beds with cardboard. I did 6 this morning, and then this afternoon I dismantled the bean frames and did the rest.

I’ve only weeded two of them, the rest can take their chance. BUt it’s not going to be a problem for as soon as it rains and the cardboard becomes waterlogged, it’ll fold down flat onto the soil in the raised beds, suffocate the weeds and then slowly disintegrate into the soil over the period of the coming year.

Immediately after lunch, I put the second coat of varnish on, and I’ll do the third coat first thing in the morning.

For tea tonight I made a mega-mushroom and potato curry. Mushrooms were cheap at the weekend and I had some potatoes left over from winter.

And there was so much surplus energy today that the water in the dump load (the home-made 12-volt immersion heater) went off the scale – ie over 70°C. I had some lovely hot wahing-up water this evening.

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Tuesday 24th June 2014 – IT DID CLEAR UP …

… even though it didn’t look much like it when we started. Damp, claggy and overcast.

Nevertheless I was at my task early and first job after brzakfast was to empty the beichstuhl as I was to be having visitors. I also steam-cleaned the kitchen in the verandah and unblocked the sink there – I need to have the place looking something like. I followed that by working on the web pages again – getting back into my normal routine.

After lunch, the weather picked up and it looked quite nice. Rosemary turned up as planned and we set about a couple of the raised beds. Rosemary weeded four and I weeded almost three and I do wonder about my technique because Rosemary’s weeding looks absolutly perfect whereas mine looks a total mess. I wish I knew what her secret was.

We had a long chat afterwards and at about 19.15 Rosemary went home and that was that.

Tomorrow I won’t be doing much as I’m off on the road tomorrow night.

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Wednesday 21st May 2014 – I HAD A BETTER …

… night’s sleep last night. Going to bed before midnight always helps and I wish that I had done so tonight instead of typing this perishing blog at 02:15 because I can’t sleep.

Even with having been out and about on my travels during the night, I woke up all bright-eyed and bushy tailed and after breakfast set about the web site. i’m on the last lap now, out on the icebreaker smashing our way through the pack-ice in the Gulf of St Lawrence in mid-May 2012.

After that, I attacked the mega-cloche and gave it a good weeding. You’ve absolutely no idea how much rubbish has grown in there in the last 3 or 4 weeks, but it’s all out now. Once it was ready, I planted the tomato plants that I had bought from the supermarket at the weekend.

After lunch, I weeded around one of the pea and bean beds, the one that already has a few peas in. Some of them have germinated (but many others haven’t) so I filled in the gaps with some pea seeds that I’ve had in a damp paper towel since Monday.

There were plenty left over too so I repaired another pea and bean frame and sowed another two rows, one either side. With any luck, they’ll grow and tangle themselves in the netting and keep on going upwards. I need to make a few more frames for peas and a pile more for the beans, and I’ll look into that tomorrow..

We had an incredibly windy day – gusting up to almost 50kph throughout. And it’s one of those days where the bigger wind turbine produced more than the smaller wind turbine. As I’ve said before, it’s a fallacy to think that you receive more charge from a more powerful wind turbine. The more powerful the motor, the bigger the magnet there is inside it so the more force that you need to overcome the resistance. That’s why in low-speed situations (and nowhere is any much lower then here) the 70-watt turbine almost always produces more than the 400-watt one.

Except today, of course.

And I was a little too optimistic about that battery that I installed the other day. One of the cells has boiled up today and distorted. So now it’s on 5 cells only until I can get round to sorting some more out.

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Tuesday 20th May 2014 – YAWN

Yes, I had a bad night last night. I was editing sound clips and the like when I happened to glance at the time – 03:45.

It ws about 04:00 when I finally went to bed and i had a very disturbed night, but I still managed to wake up and be out of bed before the cacophony of alarms finished at 08:00.

However it ruined my day quite considerably. I couldn’t concentrate on my website work and in the end rang up Rosemary for a chat.

Outside, I dug over the two potato beds, fitted the new raised bed and then planted all of my potatoes.

I checked over the seeds in the small greenhouse and I’ve planted some more lettuce and leeks. Nothing much survived my two weeks away. I then watered all of the plants (that’s why we’ve had a torrential rainstorm tonight) and soaked everything in the greenhouse.

Only a short blog as I’m shattered and now I’m off to bed. See you in the morning.

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Tuesday 29th April 2014 – I WAS UP …

… before all of the alarms had finished going off today. That’s keenness for you and it shows just what an early night can do for you.

It was a gorgeous day too at that time of morning. But it didn’t last. As I was working on the website again it started to rain and that’s what it’s been doing on and off all day.

after the website I went out to plant the raspberries and strawberries that Liz gave me yesterday. That meant hoeing the bed right through from one end to the next and then adding a pile of sand to lighten the soil.

Once I’d raked and hoed all of that well in, I could plant everything, and now they are in. And to take me up to lunch time, I hoed the onion and shallot beds.

I was in no rush after lunch as we were having a rainstorm. But once it died down a little I popped out and put the secon coat of wood treatment on the raised bed that I made the other day.

I’ve also been working on Caliburn. The back is all cleaned out nicely now and I’ve rebuilt a bed for the back. I’ve been using the old hammock-type of attachment that was a fifth bed in an old caravan that I broke for spares ages ago. But that gave up the ghost a while ago.

But then I had a brainwave. When I was living in a caravan I cut down a bed to fit in an odd corner and I’d forgotten all about it since I scrapped that caravan too. I resurrected it, cut it to fit the rear of Caliburn, fastened it all together with some angle brackets and aluminium strips riveted in position, and then made a cradle out of the old hammock supports.

It works a treat too, and I’ll be very comfortable on that bed, for I’m going away next week for 10 days or so, I reckon.

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Friday 25th April 2014 – NEW TOY!

kubota b 1220D diesel tractor les guis virlet puy de dome franceYou may remember the other week that while I was out shopping one Saturday I spent a huge pile of money – more than I’ve ever spent on any previous shopping trip?

Well, here’s the reason why – delivered this afternoon.

It’s a Kubota B1220d mini-tractor, diesel-engined, 4-wheel drive with tri-point lift and power take-off


Anyone who has followed this rubbish for any length of time will have seen me spending three days with a hand-winch moving an old van 20 yards, or seen me shifting a couple of tons of rubble two buckets at a time, or shifting a trailer-load of sand in a wheelbarrow, or dragging logs one by one up from my forest.

Well, the fact is that I’m fed up of doing all of that and I’m not getting any younger. And on my birthday the other week I had a small insurance policy come to maturity.

kubota b 1220D diesel tractor les guis virlet puy de dome franceAnyway, to cut a long story short … "hooray!" – ed … when I was in St Eloy the other week, the local DiY place was just taking deliver of four of these for sale with the price slashed something like 40%, as they are old stock and a new model is coming out.

Not only that, the French government’s “cash for clunkers” programme also covers agricultural machinery and if I traded in an old auto-tractive machine, I’d get another €1,000 off. As it happened, I had an old, rusting, rotten auto-tractive field lawnmower that’s done nothing at all since I brought it here in 2002 and never will do either.

And so I thought “what the hell!”


What I need for it now is a flat-plate mower, a tri-point blade, a chain harrow and a small trailer. I already have an electric winch and that’ll do me for now. I can think of loads of other things, but all of that in due course.

So here I am now, totally broke, but ask me if I care. I’m as impressed with this as I was with my galvanised steel dustbin. It means that I won’t get to go on Trixi’s week in Corfu in May, which is a huge disappointment as I was really looking forward to seeing her again, but that can’t be helped.

So after the usual morning’s activities were dealt with, I went outside at midday. With not being sure of what to do, I had a look at the little greenhouse and it now seems that I have a cucumber, piles of lettuce, three leeks, some broccoli, some chives and some basil. It seems that things are very slowly coming to life.

And the … errr … 37mm of rain that we had in 12 hours late yesterday has caused a huge pile of weeds to spring up. I need to look at them.

Where I cleared off the space for the new raised bed the other day, I noticed that I had covered it over with sheets of corrugated iron. That had prevented anything from growing in there, which was the aim, but also loads of stuff had fallen on there over the last three or four years and was well on the way to making a nice compost.

I cleaned all of that off – there was 4 barrow-loads of it – and all of that has gone into the compost bin, which has filled that.

So this afternoon, after playing with the Kubota, I dug over where the raised bed will be and then made the framework. I’ve put some wood-preservative on that to see if that will slow up the decaying process any, and I’ll do a second coat over the weekend. That can then be laid down at the beginning of next week.

That took me up to 19:20.

Yes, I’ve been very busy today but it’s all been productive.

And I’m really pleased that I bit the bullet and bought the Kubota.

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Thursday 24th April 2014 – 19.5MM …

… of rainfall we have had between 20:00 and 21:30 – and there’s much more forecast; No issues about watering the plants then, that’s for sure.

I was up before the alarm again this morning and after breakfast that gave me almost 3.5 hours on the website. I like being on summr hours!

First job outside was to sow the beetroot and spinach seeds that I had left to soak. That meant doing a little bit of hoeing of course. And then I finished off the solar shower. That is exactly how I want it now, but there are some kind of pressure issues that need to be resolved. We’ll have to see how it goes.

After lunch I did a little measuring up for my next trick, but while I was doing that, my eye was caught by some blossom down in the jungle that is the bottom of my garden.

Of the 20 or so fruit trees that I planted in 1999 and 2000, one is still there, but it seems that there’s another one too. Way down the slope a little, and this is what the blossom is.

It’s surrounded by a pile of these scrub trees and is getting no light at all and so I resolved to deal with this issue.

By the tile I had knocked off I reckon that I had cut down over 20 trees (one or two of them were significant too) and the tree concerned is now clear of oerhanging trees. That will bring more light to the tree, and also more light to the rest of the garden, includind the vegetable beds.

Not only that, I managed to make my way out the other side too into clear space for the first time for 11 years and that really is something to celebrate.

And then tonight we have the rain …

I’m not sure what to do tomorrow.

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Tuesday 22nd April 2014 – SO WHAT’S HAPPENING …

fire pionsat 22 april 2014 puy de dome france … over there tben? There’s quite a fire burning for some reason or other and I wonder what’s going on.

I couldn’t hear the pompiers or any amulance or anything and so I don’t know how urgent that might be, but it certainly looks most unwelcome.

However, it’s not likely to burn for very long because we’ve had something of a torrential downpour this evening. There’s been the odd shower or two and we had a thunderstorm pass over at about 15:00 but it really meant business this evening.

Still, the first real rain for a couple of weeks and so we can’t complain too much.

The rain is my fault too, for I’ve been out gardening today. And I noticed that the three surviving strawberry plants have flowers now. But that’s by the way.

First job was to plant the Brussels Sprouts that I bought on Saturday. So I gave that bed a good hoeing over first, and carried on to weed a few more as well while I was at it. Then I planted the sprouts, followed by the 12 lettuce that I bought. 6 of them went in between the sprouts, and the other 6 went in between the cabbage that I planted the other week.

After lunch I sowed the new potatoes, and then I turned my attention to the seeds. Seems that I have some lettuce coming up, and there’s signs of life in the leeks too. But still nothing much coming up anywhere else.

Now though, I have some sprouts, cabbage and cauliflower seeds sown, as well as some organo and basli seeds. Tomorrow, though, i’ll need to push on.

At 17:45 I came to a halt as I had to go round to Cécile’s to show some househunters around – that was what I was on my way back from doing when I noticed the fire.

I made another mega-curry tonight. This one is a mushroom and green pepper one, and that will keep me going for a few days too.

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Friday 11th April 2014 – LOAD OF BANKERS

I had to go to the bank twice today. And what really annoyed me was that I had a really good start to the day too.

I slept soundly for a change, and there was something about a menage a trois going on through the night. Mind you, I had been watching Percy so that might explain some of it.

But for once, up before the alarm and I’d even spilt my breakfast, remae it, made a coffee and brought everything up here, before the alarm went off.

So I was at the door of the bank as it opened, and “sorry, the informatique isn’t working”. And it’s market day in Pionsat too. So I GRRRRd and grumbled at them and, being reassured that it would be up and running by the end of the morning, I was persuaded to come back later.

While I was working on the web site, the boulanger came past and I gave her some of my surplus mint and thyme (still plenty left, folks).

At 14:00 I went down to the bank again. And guess what? Quite right. The informatique is STILL not working. And so I made a fuss, and the manager saw me, and he did everything by hand. And it’s important that he did as I need to regroup my cash as I have a major expense to make tomorrow, more of which anon.

They also found my missing bank card too, which cheered me up quite a bit.

I spent the afternoon clearing yet more wood and I can now actually see the ground where I want to put this new raised bed. This is progress, not just for the raised bed but for the woodpile too. That’s looking extremely healthy now.

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Wednesday 9th April 2014 – IT’S BEEN A WOODY DAY TODAY.

Yes, I’ve been dealing with some timber issues.

But first, I was up even before the final alarm sounded. I’d made breakfast and coffee and was back up here with my food by the time it went off.

I was on the web pages at 08:45 too and that has to be something of a record and I did two full pages before finishing at 12:00 and then it was off outside. And first thing that I noticed was that two more courgette plants are rearing their pretty little heads.

Now, if you remember the story of the raised bed that will contain the soft fruit, that was hacked out a few years ago of what was the jungle. But with all of the old weeds dying off and the new ones not quite established, it was possible to clear quite a large area around it, and so I attacked that today.

Surrounding the bed are lots of those horrible ground elder trees that sprout up like forests in just a year or two. I’ve hacked down about a dozen of those and they are stacked out to dry for a couple of years. One day, I’ll pull up the roots too.

Now, the sunlight streams onto the soft fruit bed almost all the day, which is what should happen.

There was an apple tree that had been flattened and was growing horizontally. I had a couple of tree stakes and so I’ve now staked that tree upright in the vertical – and it’s blooming now.

When I cleared the ground for the bed, I stacked some of these ground elder trees and od course they are now bone-dry. I ended up with two barrow-loads of small kindling that will do me for much of next winter and there’s still plenty to go at. I need to clear some space though in order to have a decent garden fire.

Final job was to water all of the plants in the garden. A hot day today, so they needed it.

And I can see that I’ll have to start some weeding soon.

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Tuesday 8th April 2014 – WHAT A WAY TO START THE DAY

Downstairs nice and early for a change, and … no gas. It must have run out just as I finished cooking last night and I didn’t notice.

Good job I’d bought that cylinder the other week. First job this morning was to couple that up so that I could have a coffee.

After the website, second job was to empty the beichstuhl. Such delightful jobs I have here. And just to prove that it never rains but it pours, the shredder packed up. And why a shredder? The answer is that you need something to absorb liquids in a composting toilet and the best thing ever designed for that is old telephone directory pages. Works like a charm when it’s shredded and I wonder what I’m going to do now.

les guis virlet puy de dome franceNext thing was to check the state of affairs with the plants that I sowed the other week. I told you yesterday that a courgette plant was raising its pretty little head. So here’s a photo of it and its brother too, because we now have two courgette plants springing to life.

Still nothing doing in the carrots, parsnips and radish bed, but before lunch I sowed another row each, together with the beetroot seeds that I had soaking overnight

Talking of soaking overnight, I put pile of pea seeds in damp paper in a plastic bag. They’ll be okay in there for a while to help them germinate.


plastic greenhouse shelf unit seed traysles guis virlet puy de dome franceAfter lunch I carried on sowing and theres another pile of seeds now in the little plastic greenhouse helf thingy that I bought the other day.

It does occur to me that you haven’t seen it yet and so here it is in all its glory. You can see the bushes that I bought a couple of weeks ago, and all of the seeds that I’ve sown. In the plastic bag are the peas.

So what did I sow today?

  • Gherkins
  • Tomatoes
  • Sweet corn – but I’m not going to be optimistic about that. I found a packet with an expiry date of 2009 so if I was going to throw them away, I might as well throw them in the soil and see what happens

Thee was also quite a mixture of seeds floating around in the bottom of the box in which I keep the seed packets. Seeing as there’s an empty bed that won’t be used for a while, they all went in there and we’ll see.


herb bins les guis virlet puy de dome franceAfter all of that I started tidying up outside, seeing as there was still some time to go. You can now see the herb bins in their pristine glory before they are all overwhelmed again.

It doesn’t look much like I’ve done any tidying up, but there’s a lot to do as you might expect. I can see the difference, but I doubt if anyone else could.

I’ve also cleaned the old “Westwood” ride-on mower. An ex-friend of mine found this for me and I never ever had it running because there are some bits missing. It’s sat here and not mooved wince 2002. Anyway, some time next week, it’s going. Someone is coming to pick it up. And you won’t believe the story behind this – you’ll just have to wait.

But whatever did happen to Paul? He was the best friend I ever had and he would do anything for me any time without question, something for which I was eternally grateful (and it goes without saying that I returned the compliment). But then he had his accident and he was put on medication, and that changed him considerably.

Finally, they changed his medication for another and I just couldn’t cope at all with the new personality. We were in Birmingham once, trying to make out which way to turn when a car (not unsurprisingly) blew its horn. He was straight out of the car going to thump the other driver and it was at that moment that I realised that I couldn’t keep this up.

I have enough problems dealing with my own issues without thinking about dealing with anyone else’s.

What a shame.

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Monday 7th April 2014 – I DON’T BELIEVE IT!

strawberry plants raised bed les guis virlet puy de dome franceWell, I suppose that I ought to really. It should be something that I’m used to by now. But do you remember me saying that I replanted 4 strawberry plants the other day? I had a look today and there are now only 3, with a hole in the soil where the 4th one was, as you can see in this photo.

I’ve no idea what happened there. I suppose some local bestiole has taken a fancy to it.

But you can see the soil just there – clay with a barrow-load of sand worked in. That should lighten it considerably.


garlic shallots raised beds potager les guis virlet puy de dome franceAs for the garlic and shallots though, I don’t know if you can really see them here in this photo but they have mostly done the business.

One or two garlic bulbs seem to have failed but I have some of last year’s crop to plant in there to replace them. And one or two of the shallots needed reseating, but otherwise they are fine. The onions in another bed are pushing up too.

Nothing stirring with the carrots, parsnips and radishes yet. I’m not surprised about the parsnips, but the carrots might have done something by now and I’m bewildered by the radishes. They should be almost ready.

I have a courgette plant about to rear its ugly head out of its pot too. And where there’s one, the others shouldn’t be far behind.

So today after website work I went out and the first thing that I did was to empty out all of the herb beds. I have a row of flower boxes and I use them as herb beds and they were all overgrown.

If anyone wants some mint and thyme cuttings, let me know as I have tons of the stuff here. It really did run wild while I was away last year. Anyway, everything is now rosy in the herb beds and I even had fresh rosemary from my own garden in my onion and mushroom gravy tonight.

For the rest of the day I’ve been sowing seeds in pots. And here’s a list of what’s gone in –

  • Aneth
  • Coriander
  • leeks
  • cucumbers
  • lettuce
  • aubergines
  • basil
  • chives
  • cayenne peppers
  • mixed peppers
  • broccoli

They are all in pots in the little greenhouse thingy that I bought the other week.

I also have some beetroot seeds soaking ready to plant tomorrow, and I’ll also look at the rest of the brassica to see what I have an what I need.

All that needs doing then is to make some more pea and bean frames and then start some of those off, and to sow some more carrots and parsnips.

Mind you, that’s not all that I’ve done. I went to St Eloy at lunchtime and spent a whole shed-load of money, in fact the only time that I’ve ever spent more money than this was in buying Caliburn and buying my various houses and apartments. Yes, there will be a new arrival here shortly, more of which anon.

And I forgot two pieces of news from yesterday. Firstly, the mystery of Matthieu’s appearance on the football pitch Saturday night is now solved. He had no intention whatever of playing, so it seems, but someone couldn’t make it at the last minute so he went out rather than let the teamplay short-handed. If that’s not courage and devotion to duty after all he’s suffered with his injury, I don’t know what is.

And Nane rang me up for a very long chat, in the middle of which she announced that a mutual acquaintance of ours had died on Saturday. It’s never nice to hear of a death, especially of someone that you know, but this friend and I did have some issues between us that have been the subject of a considerable rant from me in the past. Nevertheless I wish her bon voyage to wherever it is that she wishes to go.

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Friday 4th April 2014 – IT WAS TOUCH AND GO …

… as to whether or not I finished the raised beds today. I can usually legislate for most eventualities that happen around here, but no-one has yet managed to legislate for the weather. And when, when I went to resume work after lunch, I noticed that the heavens had well and truly opened and there was also a hanging cloud in the vicinity, I reckoned that that was that.

Mind you, it was all my fault.

After the usual 3 hours or so on the web site, I went outside and finished off weeding and digging over the big cloche. That’s now clear, and I even managed to rescue four strawberry plants. They went in the soft fruit bed, which I duly watered (and which was doubtless my downfall), and then I came in for lunch.

Seeing the driving rain, I had a very merry 45 minutes inside doing some tidying up. But then I thought that this isn’t getting the baby bathed and I don’t really want to come back and do it again, so I put on a rain jacket and went back outside.

By now the soil had turned to a miserable, wet, claggy clay but I carried on regardless, covered in mud and soaked to the skin, but at 18:35, with just 25 minutes of my working day remaining, I could put my tools away.

Yes, in just 12 working days, many of them full of interruptions, I’ve dug over and weeded 13 raised beds and a giant cloche, none of which has seen any attention since August 2012, and I’ve sown and planted a few crops in them too.

I can safely say that I have never worked so hard in all my life, but it’s all now done, even if I am totally exhausted and crashed out yet again this evening.

But I’ve treated myself to my last bag of vegan Rhubarb and Custard sweets and quite right too because I feel that I’ve earned them. I’m going to be taking it easy over the weekend and then restart work on Monday.

And quite right too.

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Thursday 3rd April 2014 – JUST LIKE YESTERDAY …

… I crashed out twice today. And at roughly the same times too. Difference is though that it was only for a couple of minutes each time, and so that wasn’t quite so bad.

And I had an early night too, so I wasn’t surprised to wake uo to find that it was darker than usual. But it wasn’t through being awake early, or through snow on the roof lights. It was in fact raining and there was a thin coating of sand on them. This desert storm has reached over here now.

So after the usual procedureson the web site, I went out to work in the garden and, just like yesterday, there were no interruptions at all. I’ve finished the bed where the soft fruit will be going, and I’ve added a load of sand to about half of it. That’s all hoed and raked in. The soil is nice, dry and friable right now but when it rains, it’s just heavy clay. Sandy soil is good for soft fruit of course so the more I can get, the better.

I then started on the big cloche and tomy bitter disappointment, not one of my 20 or so strawberry plants survived the bitter winter 2012-13. I was wondering if I should buy some more when I saw them at the Auchan on Tuesday, and I wish that I had now.

So in the garden there is half of the big cloche to do, and then one more raised bed. I’m hoping that I can finish them tomorrow because that will mean that, starting on Monday, I can go onto the revised plan B of 2 hours in the house in the morning, then 2 hours in the garden after lunch and then finish off with 2 hours back in the house.

I’ve so much to do and I really ought to get cracking.

And another windy day today.

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Wednesday 3rd April 2014 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… I crashed out not once today but twice. Once at lunchtime and once at about 19:30 after I knocked off.

I’m clearly over-doing it, I reckon, and having late nights and disturbed sleep just recently isn’t helping.

I managed to wake up at some kind of realistic time however and after breakfast I had a productive morning on the website. By 12:00 (or thereabouts) I was back outside and I made a start on another raised bed.

After lunch (which finished rather later than planned, as you can imagine), I carried on with my raised bed and now that one is finished too. There’s a big raised bed, the last one that I installed, and that is destined for the soft fruit. I made a start on that and now that’s about one-third finished.

When that is done, there will be just one more raised bed and the two cloches (although at the moment I’ll only be clearing out the big one). Wouldn’t it be a pleasure if I could finish all of that? It depends of course on whatever interruptions I have and today, there were none at all, just for a change.

I’ve done some tidying up in the garden too, around the edges. The border between my land and the farmer’s field is a mess and so I cleared out a couple of metres of that. There are a couple of young trees growing there and so I trimmed them and wove the young branches around the barbed wire that forms the boundary. It’ll look so much nicer with tree branches and leaves all around it.

There’s a fruit tree too that’s giving me issues. If you remember back several incarnations of this blog, you’ll remember that I planted two dozen or so when I bought the place and for a while they were productive. But my absence for several years when I was ill led to most of them being lost.

One at least (and there may be more) is still there but as a sapling it was trampled down by a wild boar or something and it’s growing horizontally across the large raised bed. I’ve been trimming it back this last couple of years so that the growth will be concentrated in some branches that are growing vertically, and I had another go at that today. It’s looking much better.

We’ve also had tons of wind today. All three turbines going round like the clappers. Shame they can’t do this every day, isn’t it?

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