2024-07 Gardening
About this time of year, everyone else is on holiday and the garden is happily growing. The weather is swapping between sun, light rain, and overcast so it’s sunny but a lot less extreme than other months. If you have the time needed you can achieve a lot in the garden.
Garden Plan
The garden development had been a little halted as we reach the limits of our current weeding and watering capability versus spare time after work. We wanted to expand but in a may that reduces some of the maintenance tasks. The future plans are
- Expand the woodchip-pathways to reduce weeding.
- To create a small fence around the raised bed area for wind protection.
- To finish tidying and turning the compost heaps
- Remove the surplus soil heaps from earlier earthmoving.
- To fix the collapsing path edges, especially where the wood edges have become a hazard.
- Create a rectangular deep woodchip area in front of the greenhouse entrance, hopefully for plants and a wooden cover like a pergola.
- trench in a supply for electric – this would give more flexibility in the greenhouse.
- create a water supply system, which might involve a pump from the stream.
- Extend the minidigger-path-wooden-crossing point to become a wooden route between the field (to the left) and the area near the compost heaps where a building might go in a few years
That’s a lot of projects sadly, and there aren’t enough weekends or paychecks before the snow stops activities. But maybe we can get some of it completed this year.
Woodchip Delivery
We found a local supplier of woodchip (flis) which is awesome in saving time and money. Instead of buying woodchip in 40L bags from garden centres we can just get a delivery via a giant scoop on a farm machine. This is cheaper and there is no waste plastic bags.
As it is freshly chipped, it’s not heavy but took a long time to distribute. We cant move it through the farmers field because the field has been freshly ploughed and reseeded, so it would cause too much crop damage. We used it to expand paths around the raised beds. The aim is to cover the existing raised bed area and expand to a perimeter where a small fence would go around as a wind break.
Preparing for the Next Delivery
We’d also like to expand between the greenhouse and the house, to create an area for more panting, ideally under a cover like a wooden pergola to give sun and wind protection. I used a rotivator on the area in front of the greenhouse to remove vegetation. I then wheelbarrowed some spare earth to fill in the land and make it a little more level. This should give a reasonably flat surface for more woodchip.
I’ll move the wooden minidigger-crossing-point in the future, which is the wooden slats across the gravel path. I was going to build the digger path to support future projects and as an bit of a walkway. We have automatic permission for one final building of up to 30m2 (Attefallshus), with some other minor restrictions such as on height and distance to property boundary. We are not ready for that yet but it will likely focus on garden storage. The trick will be to make good use of the allowance without creating something that is too imposing on the garden.
I’m not super-keen on the groundsheet fabric – cardboard would have been biodegradable – but this is what is available locally.
Strawberry Patch Defences
The magpies (skata) and various types of crow or ravens were eating the strawberries (jordgubbar, literal translation: “old men of the soil”). A heavy metal grid over the plants would stop the birds but be a pain to move and would need lots of supporting woodwork in order not to collapse from the snow in winter. For now we put a lightweight net over the strawberries and then used Fimo modelling clay to make red shapes about strawberry size. After baking the shapes in the oven they were hard and we put them around the patch where birds might peck at them and potentially decide the red shapes and strawberries weren’t food.
New Plants
We planted two new cherry trees (körsbärsträd) to the side of the driveway where we had originally had some birch (björk) trees that had been diseased and had had to be cut down. We need to get some wood stakes to anchor the trees before the winter and storms.
I got one plant each of three types of creeping thyme (timjän). I’m going to plant it and see if the three test plants survive the winter. If they do survive I’ll see if they can become a cover plant to reduce weeding around the border fences.
I also got an apple tree, but I cant plant it until we’ve built a small arch next to the location it will go. Getting lumber and parts at this time of year can be difficult as so many people are on holiday.
Garage Clearout
I want to setup for metalwork in the garage, I think I can set aside a 3mx3m area for it. But first it means having a big garage clearout.
I did a few trips to the recycling tip to remove the remains of various projects. I took a fitness machine I purchased during the first winter to a local second hand shop (loppis). They were happy to have it and the goodwill has more value than I could have got from selling it. I also advertised metal facade sheeting to direct friends on Facebook which someone immediately snapped up. It had been stored ever since we moved in and I’ve no need for it. At 4m long the sheets took up all of one wall of the garage to store.
Metalwork area
All this cleared out enough space to have a reorganisation. I could mark out the space for a metal working area where I might be able to do welding practise, repairs, and fabrication. It also made it clear that a lot of the garage space is taken up by gardening supplies, hand tools and machinery. We could really do with a separate shed for these.
I’d like to flatten and surface the floor in the area I’ll use. The current concrete floor has parts of old tar sheet and other odd things stuck to it that are hard to remove and make the floor uneven. If I put in the work to flatten the floor, levelling it at the same time would be sensible. It is not much difference in the amount of work. After the floor is ready I am thinking of building a steel frame around the work area. This would create storage above and allow panelling to provide spark protection for the rest of the garage. I dont want sparks from any welding or grinding operations causing a fire.
But this is a project for another month. Perhaps when the snow first starts because it will still be warm enough inside concrete to set without risk of ice formation damage.
Beer Brewing Preparation
I was lucky enough to get given some money early on in the year as a gift to buy a beer making setup. This month seemed a good time to make the first move and give things a shakedown. There was a budget brewing setup on offer, and I could afford a supporting kit and recipe kit.
I cleared out gardening supplies from one area of the basement. This involved washing all the plant pots I could find which took about an hour. On finally finishing, I opened the sink cabinet and found about twice as many plant pots, also needing cleaning. They will have to wait for another month.
I used an interior paint (Teknos Biora) used for hygienic surfaces to paint the adjacent walls. With the yeast products and potential humidity from beer-making it seemed a good idea to take precautions. The floor was still fresh from being repainted last month,so the basement was looking quite bright.
Other Basement Work
The project to re-floor the heating room is stalled and will need to wait for next summer but I can do some partial work on it. I cleared 14 buckets of rubble from the heating room project and took it to the nearby new council tip, which takes construction waste. It’s all soot mixed in with concrete, bricks and lots of dust.
I did make a little more mess. There were three final fireproof pathways to fit in the basement to allow cables to go in all the directions needed for future work. These are small metal pipe sections used to channel cable through walls, and have a special liner that will seal shut in the event of a fire.
Fitting them involves drilling a hole though the wall, sliding the section in and then using repair cement to fill the gaps in the circular hole against the box section. A metal plate then slides over each side of the box section protruding from the wall.
Once in, routing a cable through a wall is mush easier. My plan is to re-route the current cables that have individual holes drilled in the walls and route data and power cables together. The current routing is not ideal – data and electrical cables have a required separation of 250-300mm where possible. I recognise that fireproof pathways in a 1940s wooden house sounds a little futile, however it’s a first step in a larger plan to reduce fire likelihood and impact.
Swimming
It is quite hard to assign time to all the different goals and projects. Balancing house, career, social, integration and just enjoying life is tricky. We decided that despite all the work that needs doing, we didn’t want to miss going swimming this summer. So we took some time and went to one of the local swimming spots.
It was sunny with a sandy beach to the lake. The water wasn’t warm but was fine to swim in. The water had fish about as long as your finger or hand, and when you stood in the shallows they came and tried to nibble my toes.
Deer Collision
As I was working on something in the driveway on the weekend, a car pulled in and surprised me. The car driver also looked surprised – he explained he had just that moment hit a deer. I said it was no problem and that he could park up more permanently if needed. I realised it might be a bit shaken and offered him a sit down and a cup of tea if needed.
We couldn’t see an injured deer. He was ok and started talking to his rental company. I walked up the road but saw no movement or noise from an injured animal. I contacted the local hunter to make him aware – he reminded me to call the police as it’s a necessary action in the event of a collision, which I did but it turned out the driver had already done it which was great.
The driver said he knew little about cars and wasn’t sure if it would be safe to drive the couple of hours to their destination so I took a look. We looked over the car and the impact mainly seemed to be on the front end plastics and metalwork, some of which could be pushed back into place. There was no oil or water leaks that would indicate a punctured radiator or oil cooler. There was also no bodywork in contact with the wheels. After some photos we helped tape up the bodywork so the car would be safer to drive.
I saw the hunter about an hour later with a sniffer dog. We’d spoken on the phone as he’d had only a vague collision location passed on from the police. He had located the deer about 200m away where it had collapsed in a ditch. I dont hunt myself but I’m glad to have the well-disciplined and trained local hunters available for dealing with mortally injured deer.
This isn’t the first deer strike at this location, and we’ve also had a pedestrian hit, some car crashes, and lots of near misses. I think there should be road changes on this stretch but as someone newer to this area I have to be a bit sensitive about the way I suggest it, and see what people think.
