2024 - What I did today

No gardening today but spent the time draining down all the water in motorhome from heater,toilet, fresh water tank and waste tank. I don't want this freezing up as we had or first white  frost this morning!
I will still be using motorhome during the Autumn/winter but will carry bottled water and rely on the diesel heater and gas heater for my comfort. Any hot water needed will be boiled and toilet will be flushed with fresh water from a bottle.

Chopped a few sticks for lighting the woodburner. I don't buy sticks now as they are too expensive but prefer to chop my own. Pallet wood is ideal but old floor/skirting boards are good as well!

Took down the old ferret run and turned the ferret house back into a shed of sorts. Emptied the generator shed. Ready for dismantling and rebuilding (with a few tweaks) as my garden shed. Dug a little more of the cut flower bed

Cleared the leaves from the patio and put them in a big dustbin.
Pulled up montbretia.
Took down beans but left the sticks for next year. Found a few small beans which the dogs ate.
Weeded VP 3. - nothing much in it now apart from a few wizened red cabbage, lots of strawberry plants and half of the Taunton Deane perennial kale (roots in VP 4 but its spreading!
Sowed rainbow chard in two pots in GH1.
Did a load of washing and dried it in the sun.

Finished pruning out last year's canes of the thug blackberry then attempted to restrain the many new trailing canes. It's planted along neighbour's fence but its growth is trained out into our garden along a 12 - 15' stock fence at right angle to neighbour forming a T. This year it has taken to not only travelling into our purpose built leg of the T, but extending along the top of the T along neighbour's fence. It is a thoroughly anti social so and so and caught on to their dog as he was investigating, so to be neighbourly I should bend the errant canes round into ours. There was I in the middle of half a dozen evil lengths of some 15ft canes trapped. It had me by the front, side and middle and wouldn't let go. It drew blood in several places. P was all for letting thug have its evil way to fill a gap in the hedge but I persuaded him it wasn't fair to a non gardening family with a dog, soon to be two (they're getting a puppy field spaniel). Mission accomplished, we then planted several privet in the gap where thug had vacated. I resolved to buy a replacement blackberry, probably thornless.

I forgot to tell you about the exciting things I did yesterday. I strimmed the area where my shed is going. Levelled it out with several barrow loads of sand and covered it with weed fabric. Then me and Bob started taking the shed apart.
Today I will continue dismantling the shed. Hopefully when Bob gets back from fixing a water supply. We can start putting it back together again

I forgot to tell you about the exciting things I did yesterday. I strimmed the area where my shed is going. Levelled it out with several barrow loads of sand and covered it with weed fabric. Then me and Bob started taking the shed apart.
Today I will continue dismantling the shed. Hopefully when Bob gets back from fixing a water supply. We can start putting it back together again

Is that the something new for this week or has the shed been dismantled before? 

Long walk with Kato then made and ate my lunch. Yesterday I bought a cheap hand held 12v hoover from a charity shop plus a Eurohike hooded sleeping bag for the cold nights in the motorhome for the princely sum of £2.00.
The above will be located to Motorhome plus a cheap dehumidifier I bought  and a coupleof hanging smellies used for cars. I think to keep the interior aerated I may leave the roof light slightly ajar to create an airflow.
Kato and I might move aboard after that and spend the night at one of my favourite spots only a few miles away.There are some nice walks nearby and It will test out how warm the sleeping bag is anyway?

I have a new project
I've been clearing some bushes and undergrowth where Spud escapes into next door. The ground drops down a bank to the old chicken run where I grew mangetout this year. I'd already cleared the area around the run but, beyond that is a patch that has been taken over by Vinca/periwinkle. About 20 years ago, I planted fruit bushes there and they're still there, in amongst the Vinca. Anyway, my project is to make a "path" down the bank, around the back of the run, through the vinca, coming out further down the garden. Basically, running alongside the fence on the south side of the garden, a fence that I haven't seen for many years because there's at least 6 feet of vinca in the way.
Its very satisfying, working my way through the undergrowth, a foot at a time, like being in the Amazon jungle without the parrots.

Shed is now fully dismantled and slabs have been laid as the shed base. Work and weather has hindered somewhat. Tomorrow between showers hopefully construction will start.

Spent the morning hacking my way through the Vinca jungle. I discovered some ancient artefacts in the undergrowth - a large blue ceramic planter that used to sit on a piece of ash tree trunk. The wood had rotted and part of the glaze on the pot was damaged where it had fallen, but its salvageable. I wonder what was planted in it??