A Self Watering Greenhouse For Free.

Do you like my new greenhouse? 'Portugal'  my polytunnel is full to the brim with plants.  So I decided to make a new greenhouse for free or "nowt" or "nuffink".  It reminds me of how I use to propagate plants when I didn't have my polytunnel friend.

J  had gone shopping and I had run out of potting compost and I remembered I had a pile of well rotted fym which resembles soil.  It's also got a few stones in it.

Regular readers will know people collect plastic plant pots for me.  It's also stopping the plant pots ending up in the landfill sites.  So I half filled some plant pots with my homemade potting fym/soil  and split some of my perennials.  Then I topped them up.

You can see them in the picture above.  They look like they need a drink.  Don't we all.  Is it "tish" time yet? You know it is when you open a can of beer and it goes "tish".

You don't need a greenhouse or polytunnel to propagate new plants.  You can have an imaginary one for free like mine!

Overgrown Hedges.

Dictionary Definition of an hedge: A hedge is a living fence made of closely planted bushes, which, as they grow and get trimmed and shaped, form a wall of green.

I only gave them an haircut in March.  Look how unruly they have become already.  

Talking of haircuts.  You can take your dog to be groomed and clipped but you can't  go in a barbers to get an haircut at the moment.  It could only happen in Ireland.😊

I USUALLY trim my hedges five times a year.  Living on the Gulf stream they (who are "they?") say we get ten months of growth.  I have decided to ask what you think on the matter folks.

The birds are currently nesting in outbuildings, nest boxes, trees and hedges.  I once found a Robin's nest in an old kettle that had no lid.  Do you think birds would nest in a roadside hedge?  I 'm not so sure.  

Do you think I should leave my unruly hedges until June or should I get out the petrol hedge trimmer and give them a trim?

I live in the countryside next to the sea.  Is it so important to have your garden manicured like a bowling green or a billiard table?  

Where do you stop?  Do we really need to mow the lawns every week? 

(Butcher Counter Only)?

 Call me stupid but?  I was reading the above supermarket advertising leaflet this morning and I noticed (Butcher Counter Only).  Where else would you get meat from?

I asked the wife and she explained that it means it's not pre packed.  

Like a lot of men in Ireland I don't  do 'food' shopping very often.  If I go in Aldi or Lidl I dart to the middle aisle for walking, gardening and DIY stuff or maybe have a mosey at the drinky poohs section.  The wife meanwhile will go round EVERY aisle pushing her shopping trolley.  I sometimes wonder if she is programmed to shop?

At least she understands what (Butcher Counter Only) means?

Posh House Revisited.

Yorkshire Pudding  mentioned Chatsworth House on his blog the other week. This rang a bell and reminded me of an anecdote I posted about the posh house on here in 2012:

 I once helped build half a golf course (the other nine holes already existed) close to the moorland overlooking Manchester and the Cheshire Plain in 1993 .

 I remember  saying one morning to a digger driver:

 “Did you have a good weekend Bill?” 

He replied:

 “Not really.  Me and the missus went to that posh house,  Chatsworth House in Derbyshire.   It was a Bank Holiday Monday and the world and his wife had decided to visit.  The traffic tail-backs went back for miles.  

We eventually got inside and it was full of snobs.  The house was full of old furniture and paintings.  She likes that kind of crap!  I wouldn’t mind there wasn’t even an effing bar to get a pint!” 

I just laughed and Bill said: "What are you laughing at?"

" I'm laughing at what you just said."

Then he started laughing.  It was a good start to a working day.

Things Are Looking Verdant At The End Of April.

Polytunnel  potatoes nearly ready to flower and produce spudatoes.

Portugal my polytunnel is full to the brim with rooted plant cuttings and vegetables.  It's amazing how much difference a piece of plastic difference in creating a micro climate.

The baths are sown with vegetables.

Beetroot and Brassicas growing in an old polystyrene welder packaging container. 

My ever increasing plant nursery.

The plant pot garden seems to be a success.  Who needs raised beds when you have got plant pots and containers?  

Potatoes coming through in the veg plot.  I can prove I am not a ghost because I have caught my own shadow in my photograph.

Stone Picking.

 Dave the soil slave went stone picking for two days this week for a farmer friend.  

 Four acres  were reclaimed and lots and lots of stone awaited us to pick: 

We had the Manitou telescopic loader to help us. 

Stone picked and ready to be set with grass seed, fertilizer and rolled.

I'm stiff as a board tonight but it was good hard graft and there's still life in the old dog yet.

I looked at some drystone walls and thought to myself the farmers long ago must of ploughed their fields and picked the boulders and stones and use them for dividing fields and building walls for livestock to shelter from the prevailing wind and rain.  Weren't they  resourceful?

The Game With The Sticks.

"The game with the sticks" is what Domino calls Snooker.   Like myself he goes snooker loopy at this time of year.  Especially when the World Snooker tournament is being played at the Crucible in Sheffield at the moment. Here he is in action:

Domino can't understand where the snooker balls go when they are potted.  

I attempted to explain the etymology of Snooker to him.  Domino just yawned.   I told him that the word Snooker is a British army term.  Billiards it's predecessor was originally designed to be played outside in the sun in India.  That's why the green felt or baize is supposed to look like grass.  

Any road or anyway.  The Monsoon season began and they carried the table inside and the the game of Snooker was invented.  Mulligatawny soup, Indian Pale Ale and Snooker all products of the British Empire in India.  Not many people know that.

Unfortunately Domino's snooker hero and mine Ronnie " Rocket" O'Sullivan  lost on Friday night.  So we are pinning our hopes on Judd Trump now.  He plays with an attacking style like Ronnie, Jimmy White and Alex Higgins.  The true entertainers.