May Adventures

Today is the first day of Winter and despite the clear, frosty morning I thought it was about time I put my fingers to the keyboard and caught up with the past few months of activity on the smallholding. Here I go now all the way back to the warmer days of May.

The flowerbeds loved the early spring heatwave and were filling up nicely. The Forget-Me-Nots self seed every year and never fail to give us some spring colour.

M decided to extend the side flowerbed to include the area around one of the trees in the garden. I'd love to be able to name the tree but despite examining the fruit each year we have failed to identify them, maybe this year we would succeed.

We bought this little crab apple tree at our local nursery which was an incredible find. It was not your usual garden centre, no café, no gifts, no toys just lots and I mean lots of plants and trees.

The crab apple blossom at the beginning of May was plentiful and such a gorgeous pink.

M spent the day tidying up the main path through the woods, another day of chipping provided a fresh layer to hopefully keep the weeds at bay.

The long, sunny blue sky days gave us the opportunity to keep up with grass cutting in the orchard and trimming around the trees and veg beds.

Another trip to the local nursery and with a car full of plants we had our work cut out finding homes for them all. The woodland garden was filling up but there was room for a little Mecanopsis.

A white Viburnum found it's place in the white garden. We made the decision not to surround it with any deer defence but only time would tell if this was wise or not.

This was a further addition to the white garden, I can't remember the name but it was such a pretty flower head. It had a slightly pink tinge to the white but from a distance it was white enough to warrant its place.

We bought a few ferns started a small fernery at the end of the main path in the woods. Over the past couple of years I had also collected some small ferns and they were also big enough to be planted out. M found a few old tree stumps so this is the beginning of what we hoped would multiply over time.

Every year I've tried to work out what is my favourite season. I think Spring is probably top of my list but I have always seeing the greenhouse full to bursting with seedlings and young developing plants, not yet ready for planting out but with the promise of an abundance of flowers, fruit and veg to enjoy.

We had a little experiment this year with our onions. As usual I sowed some onion sets in cells in the autumn and overwintered them in the greenhouse before planting out in the veg bed. As a comparison I also sowed some onion sets in a similar fashion in the spring. The first 2 rows on the left were autumn sown, the rest were spring sown. Even at this early stage it was clear to see that the spring plants were much larger and healthier than the autumn ones.

I always seem to order too many potatoes and yet again this year, once the coffins were full I had to plant some in the plastic buckets.

I even had some more left over seed potatoes to fill 3 of the canvas pots. They were against the byre wall where they captured the sun during the day and were also protected from the worst of the rain.

By the middle of May it was time to get the tomatoes planted up in their grow bags in the greenhouse. Of course this involved clearing out a lot of plants to make some room.

 

Despite the high temperature in the greenhouse I managed to get the first 4 growbags of tomatoes planted up.

During the sunny days the grass moving and weeding often seemed unending but so satisfying to see everything all tidied up at the end of the day.

We moved our little Gogi plant to a new position as it had been struggling for the past 2 years and had hardly grown at all. It made me laugh when I saw it advertised in the nursery as 'easy to grow'. Hopefully the new location would give it a boost.

The beans and peas were flourishing in the polytunnel although this year we were experiencing an increase in greenfly. I was hoping that the presence of some marigolds would help to control them.

The seedlings in the greenhouse were growing well and were ready for transferring to the pots, baskets and planters around the garden.

We made a determined effort this year to grow pumpkin and squash. They had been growing vigorously in pots in the greenhouse until we thought the weather was suitable to plant them out. M cleared an area in the old winter pig pen and erected a frame/trellis to support the fruits. Unfortunately they only lasted about 3 days before they all succumbed to slugs. With time running out I sowed a few more seeds to try again.

M built a huge framework out of hazel sticks for the peas. We were hoping for a good harvest this year.

We have very few pictures of the back garden to remind us of our work there but it always looked good when it has been tidied and the grass was freshly cut.

A favourite of ours has always been Lupins but in the past we struggled to keep them alive. Another go this year in a different location would perhaps prove successful.

Making the most of the decent weather and I got the 'white garden' strimmed although the distinct lack of white flowers was not through lack of trying but mainly due to constant presence of deer and rabbits.

Approaching the end of the month the weather turned but as we sheltered in the byre we took the opportunity to plant up the simmer pots.

They looked a bit sad in the rain but we hoped they would improve as they filled out and the flowers appeared.

What a glorious way to end May, a beautiful walk at the seaside with M and the dogs, one of our favourite places in any weathers but especially on a sunny day.

Bathroom Renovations

During February M decided it was time to tackle the next renovation project in the house, this time focusing on the upstairs bathroom. By the end of April it was all finished so I thought it was time I put together a little before and after post. Beware, as per all the other renovation posts there are lots of photos!!

 

This is what the bathroom originally looked like, it had a shower, bath, toilet and sink all tightly packed into quite a small room. During our first year here we had new windows fitted and the chaps removed some of the tiles around the window. It had been like this for about 3 years but it's amazing how you get used to things and after a while don't even notice them anymore.

One thing I always disliked was the cold tiles on the floor, especially when you were barefooted in the middle of the night!!

The sanitary ware was rather ornate with gold effect taps and scalloped edges which I really hated trying to keep clean. The sink was also very low and we only had a tiny little mirror hanging from a nail of the wall.

With a wood ceiling the bathroom was quite dark and we only had 2 rather ineffective lights.

When M sets his mind to something I don't like to stand in the way so a couple of hours later and the bathroom was emptied and handed over for M to do his magic.

One day later and M had certainly been busy removing the old shower and bath panels.

 

Not long until the wooden ceiling was torn down along with a lot of the wall and floors tiles.

With all the tiles and sanitary ware removed we were able to see what state the wall and floor were in. Sadly it appeared that the shower had been leaking for some time so the walls were damp and mouldy and some of the floor joists had started to rot.

Next to the bathroom was the little bedroom/office. In order for M to assess the extent of the damage to the floor he had to remove the stud wall dividing the rooms. It always seems that one job leads to another and another and so the project was getting slightly larger. After a lot of hard work M replaced the floor joists and was able to start laying the floor and rebuilding the stud wall. Or so we thought!

We had one little mishap when M slipped and put his foot through the floor of the bathroom and into the ceiling of the craft room below. At least it made checking the pipework easier. I was able to get sheets over most of my wool to limit the dust damage which also helped with the clean up operation.

The bathroom was always quite a cold room and as with the other renovation projects one main concern was the introduction of insulation in the walls. Once the largest wall was insulation M briefly fitted the new radiator to check the plumbing and pipe locations.

After the joists were sorted the floor boarding was in and the room was starting to take shape again.

M put his DIY skills in motion and in no time we had a stud wall up, the walls were all boarded and the first part of the floor was in.

Next M put down a layer of scree to level the floor.

Lastly the ply boards were laid on top of the scree ready for the flooring, well all in due time of course.

On a bit of a roll M got the shower tray installed and measured up the sink unit ready to be fixed after a few others jobs were completed.

Having got rid of the sauna style wooden ceiling we got our plasterer in to finish off the ceiling. This was also a good excuse for M to have a couple of days off, waiting for it to dry.

Full steam ahead and we were soon fitting the waterproof wall sheeting around the shower area. After looking so dark it was lovely to see the room beginning to brighten up again.

M was working very hard to get things moving and with the shower in along with the sink and mirror unit it was great to see the room resembling a bathroom.

After a visit from our electrician we had light and a working shower, not quite a functional bathroom just yet but looking good.

Having lights certainly made working in the bathroom much easier.

Expanding his already wide range of DIY skills M made an amazing job of tiling 2 and a half of the walls (the rest were covered with the splash boarding).

Together we huffed and puffed and eventually got the shower enclosure in. Having made so much progress M completed the sink unit and fitted the tap before starting on the floor. Next came the toilet and the rest of the floor.

Once the flooring was in then so was the new shiny (and big) radiator. Oh and you can just see the edge of the toilet.

I was getting very excited at this stage as I knew it wouldn't be long until we were able to use the shower!!

 

A few last adjustments, adding hooks and toilet rolls holders etc and dare we say, it was finished - massive thanks and congratulations to M for all his hard work.

What a difference, a clean modern and gorgeous bathroom (well, shower room really). Now onto the little bedroom next door. An unplanned but necessary project.

The dividing wall between the bathroom and bedroom still needed some work on the bedroom side.

Thankfully it didn't take M long to board the walls ready for lining paper.

Most of the time we paint the walls so we thought it might be a nice change to pick out some wallpaper.

As the room was to be a small bedroom and office combined we settled on a book themed wallpaper. Yet another DIY test for M.

With the new carpet fitted we managed to squeeze the single bed and furniture back in and hang our pictures back up. Maybe one day I'll even get my sewing machine out and sort out some curtains.

Even the little office corner was coming together, the end of another successful renovation.