The Bjorn Ultimatum

If only I had photoshop, that would read the Bjorn Ultimatum

Nothing like a bit if pressure to spur you on.  With Bjorn having hired the digger and jack hammer for Friday. He gave me the ultimatum of all the plants that I want to keep being moved to the front garden by Friday or they get squashed. 

the before picture

So I had a frantic week digging, potting, planting in the front, planting at the allotment, phoning around "does anyone want raspberries, strawberries, flowering currants...." And finally with the exception of a few strawberries the garden was clear.  

making space in the front garden for the plants from the back

It's a good job that I don't want the lawn in the front garden!

I then proceeded to clear out my hot compost bin and the two compost bins left by the previous owner. One of them had beautiful black compost the other, a plastic bin, was dried up and useless. I lifted the lid and gave it a shake to get all the rubbish out and as it tumbled to the ground a swarm of bees erupted from the debris. Well, I didn't wait to find out and could have passed Usain Bolt in the hundred metres. Once I'd laughed myself silly, safely back in the house with the door closed, I again ventured out to see what exactly was going on. There was still a flurry of activity at what I could now see was a bumble bee nest. Fear and fascination was holding me in this strange rocking dance as I tried to get a closer look then remembered they were rather pissed off. 

the dried up compost bin with the bees nest

Back on dear old google and I found a Newbury number to call.   The nice man informed me that a queen had probably gone in a few months ago and laid her eggs and started a colony of workers tending to the baby queens.  The young queens should emerge in a few months to find new places to hibernate over the winter and then the nest will be dead by October.   

Look carefully and you can see the bees nest just to the left of the white roots

Bombus hypnorum, I think, but I didn't want to get too close!

As the nest had been exposed to the elements I placed the bin lid over the nest and left it alone. So long as nobody pokes it or breathes on them (apparently that sends them nuts, they must think we all have dog breath or something) they should just go about their business of pollinating the flowers.  I then felt the need to identify my new neighbours and I think that they are Tree Bumble Bees as they had white tails and an orange thorax.  But I didn't want to get too close to see.

Moving the plants seems to have disturbed and brought out all the wildlife in the garden.  A frog jumped out of the good compost, I popped it in the pond and gave the tadpoles the fright of their lives; a smooth newt was hiding in the front garden next to the wall, popped that one in a pile of old bricks at the back of the greenhouse where I'd found one previously. 

my photos are getting very vague!  the compost hoping frog

this one's clearer! a smooth newt, it has a bright orange tummy
but I couldn't get it to roll over for the photo.

Then it was Friday. The digger arrived. Bjorn lost no time in getting stuck in. The back garden was soon flattened, along with the shed (and a few down pipes).  Thinking about how long it took us to level our old garden and dig out the trenches for the patio, which was weeks. This took a matter if days.  Lottie was convinced daddy was on a tractor, while Holly kept telling me that daddy had lifted the shed with just one finger.  I'm not sure that one was true but he sure is a superhero to me as I'm sure if I was in the digger I'd have knocked half the house down and burst a water pipe!

Bjorn the builder

By the end of Sunday evening there was still a lot of soil to move into the skip but the hard work of digging has been done. After that we will be on to stage two; dumping tonnes of MOT (crushed limestone) into the base of the patios and paths to stop any movement, putting in the retailing walls and steel edging.  

But first I'd better get my wellies back on and fill that skip. 

Back in the swing of things

Since breaking radio silence last week I seem to have been constantly in my garden, allotment or someone else's garden. 

My greenhouse is simply bursting with small shoots of hope and bigger seedlings ready to transfer to the allotment or larger pots. 

When I first got my allotment I resolved to dig it all by hand and not to spray and rotavate. But the path to hell is paved with good intentions and my resolve weakened in the face of half an allotment still undug.  (if couch grass was edible I would eat like a king.)

I saw a notice from a kind fellow allotmenteer offering to lead his rotavator, I buckled. But even more foolishly I didn't spray.  But like baldrick I had a cunning plan. 

The area that we rotorvated I cleared of big lumpy weeds and grass and then covered in weed suppressant. Next I  cut holes in the covering and planted my strawberry popcorn (in rectangles of 3x6 to aid pollination), sweet dumpling squash and Halloween pumpkins. These will benefit from the warmth the surpressant creates while the rest of the ground can sit dormant for a year or so. I'm hoping that the few slots of light in the surpressant won't activate too many weeds.  If this cunning plan doesn't work then I'll have to accept defeat and spray this area next Spring.

We didnt get all of it done so I'm now about 3/4 of the way through the allotment I've covered the rest in surpressant and will hand dig as an when.

strawberry popcorn and sweet dumpling squashes planted through the weed suppressent

My greatest joy at the allotment is the tiny purple sprouts bursting into frothy fronds of asparagus!  I've been waiting and waiting bursting with anticipation and also fear that they wouldn't arrive. I had just about given up hope until  the first one popped out like a tiny garden eel (I must confess to doing a little dance there and then at the allotment). I now have 9out of the 10 that I planted poking their little heads out if the ground.  And I hope I can keep them alive and beetle free til next year. 

garden eel

purple asparagus

My dear friend Sally, who I worked with over 15 years ago, moved to the US then found her way back to of all places Newbury, has just moved into a new house.  Her naked garden was soon calling me. So we planned a hot vibrant design with lots of plants for wildlife. 

The builders had done their usual trick of dumping all of the crappy earth (you could throw pots with the stuff) in the garden so Sally spent a hot bank holiday digging out the clay ready for the fancy designer (me) to come round when all the hard work had been done to plant. 

there were actually double the amount of bags going off to make clay pots!

I had even convinced her to paint her fence dark grey.  A bit of a scary colour at first thought but it really sets of the colours of the plants.  

Despite the threat of rain it was a lovely day spent planting and nattering. We got a little twisted while putting up the wire for the climbers but we managed to get the trachylospermum jasminoides tied in (using strips of old grey tights, gentler on the plants and cheap!) without to much bother before both of us had to dash off to pick up kids, take kids to swimming, gymnastics.

now we sit back and watch them grow

This flurry of activity seems to have spurred Bjorn and me on to get going with our garden.  While I had a glorious weekend with the girls in Wales at the beach with Ra Ra, Bjorn filled a whole 8 yard skip with concrete from the patio and garden. 

my weekend

I am now in the process of moving all my plants from the back garden to the front before the arrival of the mini digger!  I'm just hoping that Bjorn will let me have a go!

Bjorns weekend