Time off Work I took 2 weeks unpaid leave off work, as I had a big backlog of tasks to get done before winter and we had a couple of weeks without a scheduled customer task for me. Once the ground freezes certain work cant be done, and once the snow builds up almost all […]
This month we conducted mostly earthworks. We were desperately trying to get significant changes done to the garden before the winter with the time and resources we had. Rain made it too wet to work with the digger without causing significant damage. At one point I got frustrated and used the digger anyway, and caused […]
This month we had family to visit and later we had a minidigger arrive to help us in the garden. We managed to get out and enjoy the summer a little. The main constraint to developing the house and garden remained time, budget, and slowly building up tools and contacts. Stugga Visit We went out […]
Our first summer with the big greenhouse, things started to get a bit out of control. The watering demands were eating up all the evenings after work and the plants were getting massive in the greenhouse. The problem became that the bigger plants, like the the Sweetcorn we had planted, were blocking the flow of […]
June gets really hot, and is the peak solar-producing month. It’s also quite brutal on the plants as they’ve been weeks without rain. Watering the plants in direct sunlight can cause damage if the leaves are wet so we hand-watered each evening. It takes a long time to water each end of the garden however. […]
May feels like a mad rush to get plants growing and established before the intense heat in June. We also had the greenhouse to finish. Greenhouse Preparation The first task was to put in a drain and pumpout point for the greenhouse so we can better cope with next years spring thaw. Last month the […]
There are normally big changes from cold weather to spring warmth but this year had a colder spring which caused some problems. Foxes, Curlews and herons appeared, and there were deer in the field. It’s quite hard to plan for planting in May as it depends on when the last frost will be and this […]
Storm Hits This month we learnt that a single missing storm tie-down on the greenhouse can spell disaster. All joints in the greenhouse had a tensioned wire holding them in place. The panels also overlapped and there were, screws securing the panels at the bottom, and at the top a metal cap holding the panels […]
It’s pretty cold outside Snow Clearing Last year we kept the snow away from the house. perimeter and were able to keep up with the snowfall sliding from the roof. This year snow slid off in the night before a super-cold night. This is bad because it forms into a large rock-hard pile. The snow […]
This was our third winter in Sweden so we were a bit more prepared but January is still fairly tough. To combat the winter blues we’ve been going out walking each night to see the stars, my partner has been baking, and I’ve been working on my Swedish. There has been no building work as […]
The ground started to freeze and the first snowfall came. It was like fine hail, tiny frozen balls instead of flakes, but later more snow came. Roadworks for Fiber Optic Conduit About a month or two ago, a construction crew had turned up at the house at 22:30. A collapsed cable conduit in the driveway […]
This month was the final rush before the ground would become hard with frost and darkness, wind and cold temperatures would make outdoor construction much more difficult. Final Raised Beds We finished the second perimeter of raised beds around the garage. The idea is to have a path between, with grass around the path. We […]
This month I was working full-time, but winter was fast approaching. I knew I had unfinished projects I had vowed to get done. I try to remember that it is important to concentrate on the things you said you would get done. If I am not careful it seems easy to have too many projects […]
In the first year, the fields were full of flocks of birds including geese, swans and other types. It was exciting when some of the birds came back this month. They stay in the field as a big group and look at you suspiciously if you walk past. It was a pretty quiet month otherwise. […]
