Category: Home

Making a house a home – creating a life away from the urban by moving into the rural.

The Fireplace

For as long as I can remember I’ve always wanted a log burning stove. One of the (many) reasons we picked this place to live in was because of the relative ease of installing one at some point in the future.

We’ve taken our first steps towards that now!

When we moved in, every room was stained yellow with nicotine. There was some serious discolouration going on, and we have had to literally rip out everything but the walls themselves to get rid of the smell. One of the dirtiest rooms (but not the dirtiest – the winner of that award goes to the third bedroom) was the livingroom.

When we first arrived and after getting most of our stuff in, I took panoramic photos of each room. I knew that we would eventually look back on them to see just how far we’ve come, give us an idea as to how much progress we have made. Unfortunately we’re not quite at that stage just yet, but with the work on the fireplace we’re one step closer!

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Makita Drill

Give a kid a hammer, and the world turns into a nail. Give me a drill, and suddenly everything needs a hole drilled into it…

After much deliberation (over a period of about 6 months) and the assistance of a generous gift card from a birthday I am finally the owner of a real powertool!

I’ve got a corded drill already, but having to move around with it whilst doing the refurbishment of the house (climbing ladders and going room to room) just isn’t practical. So I purchased a Makita 18V cordless drill to make my life easier.

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Grow your own… food!

Although we’re nowhere near complete with our house renovations, we couldn’t resist growing some of our own food in our garden over the summer.

I haven’t updated on the progress of this venture, so here’s how it went!

Tomato

Wow. Huge success here. We had them on the floor both outside the greenhouse over the summer as well as inside the greenhouse as it got colder. Unfortunately this resulted in slugs and other pests eating their way through a significant portion of our stock. Even so, starting with just six plants we ended up with hundreds of tomatoes which we barely managed to keep up with. We ate them with almost every meal, and even had to give some away!

We will absolutely be growing these again. We want to try some different varieties as well as get some form of shelving to keep them off of the ground next time. I think with half the number of plants on raised shelving, better protected from the cold, we would end up with more tomatoes than we had this year.

Cucumber

Another huge success. Not only did we get over a dozen spikey cucumbers, they tasted great too. They soak up water like a sponge, so after we went on holiday for a week we came back to a dead, crispy plant 🙁

Next year we will grow another plant (or two) as we know we can get much more fruit from it. As long as we remember to water them…

Cucamelon

We planted two Cucamelon plants in the same pot as the Cucumber (similar name, same pot. Makes sense, right?) but unfortunately they didn’t really grow many fruits. Interestingly, once the Cucumber plant died, the Cucamelon bumped up production of both fruits and shoots. I didn’t get a picture of any of these – they were so rare that we picked them and ate them almost immediately.

The few fruits we did get tasted good. It’s just a shame there weren’t many. We might try these again in a different pot, but possibly not next year as we have some alternative fruits we want to try our hand at growing.

Strawberry

We were gifted a strawberry plant by family but unfortunately the cat decided it would be fun to dig it up and play with it, ripping it apart almost immediately after planting it.

We can learn to forgive him. In time.

I’m very eager to grow and eat fresh strawberry, I don’t think I’ve ever had any that weren’t purchased in a store.

Lettuce

Ah, lettuce. This would have been a resounding success if it weren’t for the ultimate failure on my part to read the instructions properly.

I planted a whole packet of what must have been at least 40 seeds into a single tray. It turns out you are supposed to plant a few of them at a time, spreading them out so that when you eat up the first batch, the second is ready to go. By the time I realised my mistake, the tray was almost solid with the entangled roots of baby lettuce. There was no saving them, although we tried. They went into the compost.

Sorry, lettuce. I failed you. Next year we will grow more, but properly. I promise to read the instructions next time!

In conclusion

This was the first time we’ve grown something edible in our garden, and overall it was successful. We certainly learned a lot and will absolutely be growing more next year. As we clear out more and more of the garden, we should be able to bump up the volume of edibles that we grow. I don’t expect to be able to completely feed us all year around – we just don’t have the land nor the time for that to be feasible – but I do want to have something on the go as often as possible.

We have also tried growing some herbs and other plants, which I might write a bit about in another post.

Apple tree

When we moved in we had a somewhat large Buddleja (or buddleia) hidden behind a veritable forest of weeds. After removing the old tree, the weeds were cleared away which exposed the Buddleja you can see to the left of the following image:

We found that although it was still flowering, 90% of the plant was dead. The trunk was almost entirely rotten – there was a single vein of living wood wound around the back of the trunk which fed the surviving branches. We had high hopes – we knew that if we could trim it down we might be able to encourage it to regrow from lower down and keep our butterflies happy.

If you look closely at the debris in the picture you can probably guess what happened next.

It turns out the several-feet-high weeds were acting as supporting scaffold, holding the Buddleja up. We had some decently strong wind during a storm one night and it tore most of it down. The rotten base gave way in just the wrong places and most of the surviving branches collapsed. With a feeling of sadness we decided to take the rest of it down and, after clearing out the (very stubborn) roots, we ended up with a nice raised bed to work with.

With the larger tree and the Buddleja gone, we felt we had to put something back. We’ve always wanted an apple tree and originally thought about planting it on top of the old evergreen which we cut down. Unfortunately we’d either need to rip the roots out or wait for them to dissolve before we could plant on top of it, so instead we cleaned up the raised bed a bit and it turned into the perfect place to plant a new apple tree!

If you want to plant an apple tree in the UK, generally the best time to do so (according to our research, though this isn’t the case for all apple trees) is somewhere in or around October. Luckily for us, it was October when the Buddleja came down, so we wrapped up warm and ventured out to a local garden centre. After perusing the somewhat limited options, we picked out a Red Falstaff apple tree, which is now happily sat in our front garden!

The Falstaff was picked partly because we liked the look of it, but also because it does not require a second tree nearby to cross-polinate as it is self-fertile. Though I’m sure there are some apple trees around somewhere, meaning we probably could have gotten away with another breed, we felt that a self-fertile tree was a good option on the off-chance that we were wrong as we haven’t  seen any other apple trees nearby yet. We’ll either get some fruit if there are no others nearby, or lots of fruit after humanity’s second best friends cross-pollinate it for us!

We have since put a grease band around it to protect it from pests, which was a horrible sticky job to do on such a thin trunk. It seems to be happy, but the coming winter will be the true test. Fingers crossed we’ll get some fresh apples next Autumn!

Treeason

We’ve got a few trees on our property. One sits right at the front of the front garden, and it doesn’t look healthy:

When we first viewed the place we identified that tree as one thing we definitely wouldn’t be keeping. It’s a shame, we like trees and nature but it isn’t the greatest tree in the world:

  • Looks unhappy, possibly unhealthy
  • Blocks the view from the property out towards the horizon
  • Blocks the view of the road, making pulling out of the driveway a little dangerous
  • Takes up several square metres of garden

As we’ve been here it’s been sagging more and more, looking sadder every day. The ground beneath it is not the best, grey water has been dumped on it for years. We really need to get some soil tests done and possibly replace the dirt. Before that, though, we needed to get rid of it. So we did.

I really wanted to cut it down myself, but the aggravation of getting rid of the carcass (can I call it a carcass?) was too much, so we paid a local tree surgeon to come and help us out.

We had also been angrily looking at the evergreens in the back garden:

These trees are difficult to manage. You need to cut them back quite regularly, but not too far or you’ll kill them. If you don’t keep on top of it, the point at which you can cut them back to extends outward, meaning the trees always grow bigger.

This has resulted in a couple of issues. First off, the row of trees stick out into the garden by two metres. That’s two metres of garden we can’t do anything with. Secondly, they’re getting very high now. We can cut them back and keep them at a fairly sensible height, but there’s some power lines going above them which puts me right off.

We also discovered, after talking to the neighbour, that they’re a nightmare for them, too. Not only do they block the morning light for the entire year, but they’ve grown so big that they have pushed over the fence behind them. The only thing keeping the fence somewhat upright is a shed they’ve put against it. Not ideal at all.

So we got the tree surgeon to cut these down, too:

We’ve gained the two metres of extra garden, we can now comfortably access the brick shed, and we’ve secured the fence (temporarily) on our end and next door. It’ll need sorting out properly, but it’ll stand for now.

We’ve still got the stumps in the ground in the front and back garden. Getting them out will be tough (in the front garden the tree was planted over the top of the gas mains, so I don’t really want to dig it out) but we’ll drill some holes into them and disolve the wood, returning it to the ground. Once we’ve done that, we’re probably going to plant flowers and/or fruit and veg in the back. The trees in the back did one thing for us, and that was provide us some privacy in the back garden, so we’ll get some climbing plants and put some trellis on the top of the fence to get some privacy back.

As for the front garden, we love trees and feel bad for cutting the existing one down, so we’re considering planting another tree there, or nearby depending on exactly where the gas main runs. Something a bit more open, maybe a fruit tree. We’re thinking Apple tree, but may change our minds.

Either way we’ve got a long way to go before then.

Some family came over and helped us de-weed and de-bramble the front garden! Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of before the de-weeding, but just imagine this with a forest of weeds instead of empty useful space:

Looks so much better already. We’re going to cut that Buddleia back once it stops flowering. The butterflies and bees love it and we don’t want to take that away from them. After it’s cut back it should regrow from the stump next year.

We’ve got a load of weeds coming in through the land beyond the fence which is proving to be a pain but now that most of it is clear it should be fairly easy to keep on top of.

The Long Wait

Hey!

It’s been a few months since I posted here, and it’s not out of laziness (mostly) – our lives have been incredibly chaotic.

Home

At home we’ve been really busy sorting out the house we moved in to in December. We’ve made loads of progress getting to phase zero but we’re not quite there yet.

When I say phase zero I mean getting it clean and painted with new flooring. Resetting it back to how it should be, a blank canvas ready to be moved in to and lived in. We’re nearly there – we’re working through the rooms one by one, getting them stripped back entirely, cleaned, holes and cracks filled, sanded and painted. When it’s sunny out, we’re working in the garden either demolishing a pond for a corner patio, growing food, or trying our best to sort out the flora. I’ll write something up about each of these in due course.

Work

Running a Library is never easy, so my partner is always focused on that job between the hours of 9am to 5pm. It’s one of those things that never quite seems to settle down. Even during the brief periods of quiet there are stacks of books to inventory or clubs and author visits to sort out. I don’t know how she does it!

As for myself, we’ve had a big GDPR crunch in the workplace which has heavily affected IT. I’ve spent the last 6 months focusing on that, but it’s been really hard graft over the last few months in particular. The run up to May 25th was hectic, but the aftermath is still being felt.

There are lots of new policies and procedures that need to be created in all areas, so a team of us at work have been chipping away at that. We’ve also had to do an impact assessment on all third parties we use, so for the last month or so all I’ve really been doing is reading privacy policies. We’ve got hundreds of third parties, most of which utilise personal data somehow. The goal is to trim that number down as much as possible (less work for us moving forward if we can do that) but it’s an uphill battle. For every 5 I tick off the list, a new product lands on my desk, either one we didn’t know about or one that another department is requesting. It feels like it’ll never end.

Future

I’ve been missing writing here – there’s so much to talk about. I’ve got pictures of a lot of work we’ve been doing so I can back fill some content and talk about the progress of different projects we’ve completed or are in the process of completing. I’d also love to get back into some more technical stuff but with all the non-technical work happening at work and all the house work happening at home there isn’t much play time left.

Besides, who wants to sit indoors and tinker with tech when the weather is so nice outside right now?

Oh, I try to keep posting to Instagram so keep an eye on that if you’re so inclined. You can see some of the progress (mostly garden/growing) there.

Until next time!

Sprouting

We planted our first new plants in our new old greenhouse and have been checking on them daily ever since.

Nobody told me that growing plants was a whole load of waiting around! My eagerness began to fade (slightly), my excitement withered (slightly), and I had started looking elsewhere for the next project to try, once work quietened down some.

Perhaps growing plants in a greenhouse isn’t for me? Perhaps we purchased the wrong compost? So many questions, so few answers.

So little patience.

Look! Green bits!

Admittedly this is only in the Catnip, the tomato is still not showing, but it’s such a relief to see that something is working. I’m sure the tomato will come in time.

Knowing that something will grow, even if just a little, is a relief. I find this feeling of the unknown, the thought that spent effort cannot be reclaimed, fills my every day life: You spend so much time working towards being able to start something and you have no idea if it will even begin to appear to be successful, let alone balloon into some major enterprise or solve the original problem you had. Even once the work is done, often the results of your efforts aren’t immediately apparent. Did that code compile? If it did… did it do what I wanted?

Growing a few seeds of catnip isn’t anything huge, but relative to the flora I have grown before (ie. nothing. What’s the opposite of green fingers?) I’m infinitely ahead of where I was a day or two ago. Where once I was swimming in the unknown with nary a hint as to whether or not I had wasted all that time, now I have taken a step in the right direction.

Here’s a bonus picture of the catnip, taken with a macro lens on a phone:

First Bloom

We’ve noticed loads of additional colours appearing in the garden!

Before I get to the new plants, I wrote about the blossom trees at the bottom of the garden previously. These are really coming out now, the colour in them is so strong it pulls your eyes up whenever you glance out the window.

As for the other plants around the property, some of them are Daffodils, plants that sprout out of the ground from a bulb at around this time of year. They’re early to appear, but don’t last long.

But there are many more than just Daffodils – I don’t know what the rest of them are, even though my partner has told me some of their names several times now… poor memory.

Some of them are probably weeds too, but I know nothing about flora, so have no idea what the difference between a weed and a normal garden plant is… Oh well, plenty of time to learn. Here’s some pics!

Blossom

We’re not sure what kind of “Prunus” these are exactly, but when we saw this place back in August the leaves were a deep red.

We’re beginning to see the garden and surrounding land change now that it’s edging closer to April. We’re so excited to see everything burst into life!

Spring is coming!

The First Seed

The dilapidated greenhouse we recently attempted to clean has now dried out a bit. There’s still some water on the floor from the cleaning, but it’s evaporating quickly.

I found three white plastic boards at the side of our property, each of which just happen to be big enough to fit into the greenhouse and act as table tops. Two were long, one short, just the right lengths for the left and right side, with the shorter one along the back. They’re not perfect, but they’ll do for now.

I’ve sat them on top of the bricks the previous owners built to act as a temporary table until we can get something more purpose built, but now we have a dry surface upon which we can plant our first seeds!

We’ve gone with one tray of Tomato (Tumbling Tom Red) and one tray of Catnip. We’ve got some Cucamelon to plant, too, but it’s not quite late enough in the year for that.

This will be a learning experience – I’ve no idea what to do next when it comes to growing fruit and veg. We’re keeping it simple for now (we have a lot of other work to do around the place) in order to learn more about the process and any tools we’ll need. Once we’re more settled (probably next year) I’m hoping we’ll really go all out on the produce producing.

We still have all the junk from the greenhouse sat on the grass that we’ll have to get rid of. A lot of wood there, which we may be able to burn, but the plastic will need to be thrown/recycled.

We also purchased a Rose bush for the front garden. We’ve put that in the greenhouse temporarily, but we’ll get that planted in the soil soon.