Spring projects

Hi, I’m most probably one of the culprits Debbie was referring to, I restore classic cars for a living, what sort of cars are you into? My lifelong love is classic Minis.

Thanks - I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Good to know about other classic car fans, I'm glad I'm not the only one...

I enjoyed reading your bio.

There are a few classic car devotees on this forum. 

Good job that looks real nice. My garden is actually not too bad, for once! I went to town on it in December/January. So far this spring I haven't achieved a lot, I uncovered my Mini and fitted some new front wipers to it as the old were wrecked.

Oh and I did manage to get in there and clean and polish the plastic.

Came up nice. 

Thanks Roy, that's helpful, I might do a bit at a time..

That is really great news!

Well done on doing those jobs. I had my own little result last week. At the end of last summer my lawnmower started playing up. Now, I'm not exactly practical or good with machinery or gadgets and being autistic doesn't help either so I was getting quiet anxious about it and worried I might have to shell out a load of money for a new one. Last week I got the mower out, found a couple of Youtube videos, re-fitted the drive band, gave it a good clean and thought to myself: "Oh well, I've tried but there is no way this is going to work. Things like this just never go well for me." Imagine my shock when I pulled the cord and the thing started first time! Worked perfectly and even better than before. I'm still buzzing about it

Hi, The hardest part of the work was to clear the undergrowth. The panels are £37 each, 3 metre 100x100 posts £25 and gravel boards £3 each. We used a concrete breaker as the new posts were going in the same locations as the old ones. You will need a narrow fork and a post hole digger makes it easier, Screwfix sell the digger. It took two people two days. Allow 2 bags of postcrete per hole. I’m 57 so I did let my son do more of the heavy work. He works on building sites as a labourer. 

Wow what a result! You and your son did a fabulous job, Roy, that looks brilliant. Do you want to do my fence too? My fence has been drowned by the overgrown front hedgerow, one of these days I will need to dig it back out, and replace both the fence and the hedge which is more bramble than hedge.

Roy, I have about 10 fence panels to replace (they are over 20 years old) and someone quoted £2,000 ! How much work is it for a half- centurion? How long would it take?

I’m still living at my mothers house most of the time, I fully understand not wanting to do anything in the winter, I can become nearly inanimate. I’ve finally replaced some of the fence, the ivy and hawthorn had really taken hold. My son dug all the post holes as I felt the need for more of a managerial role. Still got gravel boards and post caps to finish.

Actually growing fruit is really easy, blueberries like an acidic soil, so thats a big pot and a bag of ericacious compost, keep them watered and just let them do thier thing.

Raspberries, and black, red and white currents don't seem to mind any soil, they don't mind wind either, one of the reasons I'm turning from veg to fruit. You can get small plants for £3 each in Morrisons or garden centres or online. Just dig a patch of ground over and remove weeds, plant your plants, cover with some bark chippings water well and a feed of something like liquid seaweed once a week and off you go.

I have my strawberries in window boxes on an old table in the garden, they don't seem to mind any sort of soil, but they are quite hungry plants and need a good water with liquid seaweed or chicken poo pellets, I surround mine with straw as a mulch, it keeps the fruit off the soil.

When it's autumn have a look on Youtube for tutorials on how to prune your fruit bushes, its all fairly easy, or you could look up gardeners world and see how Monty Don does it, I find it best to find someone who you like and can understand and stick with them or you'll get confused. Strawberry plants will have babies that come off runners abit like spider plants, I get a small pot of compost and poke the new plantlet into the  pot of compost and peg it in place with a paperclip that I've undone, or a hair grip and just leave it, make sure its watered and dosen't dry out, then next spring, clip the runner off both the new plant and the mother plant. You can double your amount of plants easily.

Spring coming does help a lot with mood. It has been a relief to get some dry weather for gardening. Last year I started a new bed for bigger flowers like cosmos as they struggled at times and needed a lot of watering in pots last year. I have managed to transplant some of my seedlings into pots. My garden actually looked a lot brighter than previous years, as I filled this bed in the winter with plants grown from mini plugs that would survive the winter and are now filling the bed with a variety of colour.

Thank you. It does feel good, being outside and busy, tiring after though. Sadly I’m not much of a gardener, my mum was, she had the garden looking beautiful when I was little. I used to sit under the hedges and read on nice days, doing the garden and seeing it clearer has brought back nice memories for me. Good luck with your house selling! I hope it all goes through smoothly for you 

Good luck with your fruit patch. That sounds amazing, such a fun project too. I wish I had the skill and inclination to do such things in my garden, but I wouldn't have a clue where to start. My garden gets a lot high winds and in the past when my mum was still alive our veg patch got decimated.

I like the sound of the fruit patch, wiill be interesting to see how it develops. Hoping to move a bit closer to our daughter who is expecting. Somewhere in North Yorkshire currently in West Yorkshire. 

I'm tidying up and refurbishing a couple of flower beds and turning the veg bed into a fruit patch, climate change means my veg get hammered by strong and salty winds, but fruit does really well, so I've got some dwarf fruit trees in and some raspberry, blackcurrant and redcurrant bushes in and an enlarged strawberry patch.

Where are you moving to WhiteD?

Looking good and it feels good I think to get things like this done or underway, nice its outdoors too. I'm not a gardener myself but do like to get outside when I can, mainly walking. No specific projects apart from hopefully selling the house! Hope you keep things going!