Fix a Pear Tree, Dig a Hole

Happy 2012 followers and non followers of G Unit alike! There has been a distinct yawning hiatus since our last entry, way back in September 2011. Plenty has taken place between then and now, so I am on catchup / ketchup.

In open defiance of the cold (it has been mild until now) we have been hitting the garden like it's Spring. First port of call was the pear tree which has been listing like Michael Jackson in Smooth Criminal. Cakeatonne and I took it in turns to push it into an upright position whilst we slipped pieces of timber in place, supported by stakes. The surrounding area was a battleground of oozy mud, so we were slipping around and swearing like Jack Tars. Tipping soil from a nearby bag we levelled (somewhat badly) the area around the roots and then splashed on some grass sods. Nothing like the careful planning of Parsley, but she was at work.

Fair pear! 

This week we have been putting in the extra work on a heat sink in the solardome. I'm not going to go into the science of this bad boy but it will be amazing once its done. All I know is how to dig a hole, and even then I need supervision! We've made good progress, through the many layers of soil, from guinness black at the top, through to dusty grey and orange clay. Sparks have been flying - literally. Using the grub and mattock (fast becoming a favourite tool) Cake and I were bashing hoards of rocks and pebbles, getting ever deeper. There were some absolute classic quotes: 

Oregano: 'C'wor getting out of this hole is proving to be more difficult than I thought. If I'm not careful, I'm gonna split my kipper, and I don't EVEN HAVE ONE!'

Parsley: 'Eww don't say that, can't you say I split my YOM KIPPUR?'

Oregano; 'Yeeeeeah! YOM KIPPUR YOM KIPPUR!'

Parsley: 'Dig all the brown away and slam it in the John Barrowman (wheelbarrow).'

Cakeatonne with a meat thermometer in his hand: 'Leave it out or I'll take the TEMPERATURE OF YOUR BAMO!'

How we laughed.

It was interesting to see how much warmer it was below the surface. Above / top level it was 0.5 C. At the bottom of the 'pit' it was a seasonable 6 C. This bodes well for the sink.  

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Editor's note: We are soon going to implement some changes, so keep your eyes peeled! 

Once You Lop You Just Can't Stop

Once again I found myself scrambling up some steep ladders to do some lopping this week. This time it was a conifer. Under the instigation of Parsley I went scrambling up, armed with a natty new bow-saw, a pair of Fiskars loppers and a mini tree saw. Not all at once mind! I'm no octopus.

Overcoming my initial fear of heights I went up for the first cut. It was damn difficult as I was getting scratched to high heaven by all the surrounding twigs and branches. Prickly little fuckers! But once I'd got some of them out the way the cutting proper was swift and merciless. The first cut is the deepest as the saying goes. Took me two journeys to chop down the first part of the main trunk. Barely had time to alert Parsley as a huge branch replete with slapping leaves came hurtling down towards her; not so much as a TIIIM BURTON! Had a second go at it after that, cutting off another 2 feet approx.

The other branches were much easier, although by now I was getting cocky and there were flying branches knocking off stone bird baths and ivy. 'Push it towards the dome!' or 'Not towards the arrch!' screamed Parsley. Well she didn't scream but she could've done.

Once the main body had been cut (we surveyed from upstairs to get the lowdown), I went up again to trim off the rogue bits and dismantle a pigeons nest. Don't worry no chicks this time of year. Then Parsley did the nice cosmetic part, tidying it up so it didn't look like topiary gone hideously wrong. Ten bags of cuttings and a couple of trunks later we sat down to sup Polish lager and a bottle of wine that could rip the varnish off floorboards. Cheers Bargain (B)ooze. Cheers.

Crazy Paving!

Here I am on a blazer of a Sunday afternoon, incongruously swathed in thermal underwear. It's been a fair while since I blogged and as ever there have been some great antics going on. If by antics you include bomb sized marrows with their very own handles, leveling shrapnel infested soil or eating chicken chowder and talking about prostate checks under the safety of a September solardome then, yes winks there have been antics.

The subject of this blog relates to an antic known as POWER WASHING HEXAGONAL PAVING SLABS. Pulling out and rigging up the Wolf Blaster Max (see link below incase you've forgotten) was a job in its own right. This lovely little piece of equipment can literally tear the skin off your body.

http://parsleyandoregano.blogspot.com/2011/06/over-moon-in-june.html

So caution had to be taken. We're talking the full Craig David here - big earphones, goggs and gloves. Transporting each of the slabs over to the other side of the garden (Parsley never likes things to be easy, even when they're perfect there will be another task, like shifting the house a couple of degrees west so it gets more sunlight etc), I slammed them on a giant tarpaulin bag. On with the Wolf to clean off the impacted dirt and scuz. For the most part it worked a big cakey dream. In my own way I felt like one of those restorers who cleans years of soot etc off the roof of the Sistine Chapel. In another mode I felt very happy to be holding a power tool feeling like I could advertise it on TV. Only people with hair like mine appear as extras in Game of Thrones, not a power tool in sight for this warlock!

Witticisms included: 'Diet Irn Bru break,' (Parsley) 'Diet Panda Coke Break,' (Parsley) and 'It categorically cannot be Panda Coke. Because whenever you say Coke it belongs to Coca Cola. It's Panda Cola!' (Cakeatonne). 'Awfully rich.' (Parsley and Oregano in response to Cakeatonne's snobbery). 'Girls Aloyd' (All three of us!)

We're about half way through cleaning them. They will look awesome in the solardome. Watch this space. Space rhymes with what? PACE. (Peace).

Summer Slam Part II

Now let's consider the flowery side of things. For the most part my patience and assiduity have paid off. The garden at Rue Albert has been action packed all the way through the last few months. In no particular order: we've had the hollyhocks bloom beautifully - starting off purple crimson, developing into a light burgundy, climbing well above six feet. Matching them for height have been my Italian white sunflowers, which though somewhat scrawny have still flowered beautifully. Special mention goes to my ruby eclipse sunflower which at current has ten flowering heads on the way! The chocolate, red sun and autumn beauty varieties have been slower to emerge and I'm still waiting on them. Same for the teddy bear variety which was largely chomped by slugs, but there's a few of them on the way.

Poppies have gone mental, as ever varied and magical. The opium poppies especially. The seed heads are like Persian towers!

The foxgloves (foxy mixed?!) may have come over from Sam's garden, but I did sow some of my own seeds last year. They have positively swarmed at the bottom of the garden. I love the texture of the leaves, silky, furry and fiendish. Slightly further up the nasturtiums have staked their claim to the fence and the ground, exploding in tangerine flames. A slightly wilted looking chocolate cosmos sits amongst them. Sweet peas trail up the fence. I am really proud of these. At first I was set to give up on them, as I was running out of space. However, throughout Summer we have had a constant supply of sweet smelling cut flowers for the living room and our respective bedrooms. Waking up to a subtle waft of honey will put some UMMMF in your day let me tell you!

Some blue cornflowers make a nice cool addition to all the reds, yellows and oranges, as does the hydra headed white cosmos that Sir Cakeatonne pledged to my cause.

The pond is looking good. The white lily has flowered on two occasions, beautiful for it's brevity. The leaves themselves house egg clusters on their underside - I'm assuming they belong to the newts as we have seen the first babies chillaxing just under the surface. The water soldiers have tripled in size, with the water hyacinths multiplying at a rate of knots. Still no flowers on them though!

The ludicrously munificent Malva zebrinas have come on a big cakey dream. Less so the African daisies - out of 300+ seeds I have had about five of them flower. Still waiting on the Gladioli to appear. Both the arisaema have grown a single leaf, but now appear to be in a kind of stasis. Won't see any flowers this year methinks! The same can't be said for all our lilies, which were universally amazing. Same goes for the Park Princess Dahlia. SMOOSH!

Overall, the garden is very beautiful. I love sitting on the bench, watching the bees, feeling the sun on my pythons...I've worked for this! And there's still much more to be done.

Summer Slam Part I

It seems strange to be writing about Summer when there's hailstones smashing off the roof, but here goes. It has been a tremendous season of gardening with amazing one liners flying from all directions: 'C'wor look at this slug! It looks like a dog shit / a burger!' 'Dig in and mong out!' 'I'm sweating like a pre-abattoir pig!' We have been so busy at our various schemes, I have quite let the time escape me and sadly neglected the blog. No mo'.

We have moved an oak tree and possibly killed it. We have laid down a path round the back of the solar dome, which involved car loads of brick transportation on the sly, a lot of swearing and complete whingeing on my part...OU THUNDER!..real time writing at its best here people; we have shaved down a huge part of the privet at the back of the garden, which involved any amount of jousting, eye-sweat-in-the-goggles and python testing. We have laughed at Alan in full woodcutter mode smooshing logs with his log splitter. I tried it and completely failed. Haaaaa.

Tragically one of the apple trees at Rue Albert gave up the ghost a few weeks ago, and completely snapped at the base. I had to saw it down then using a panoply of tools hack it into small pieces to be taken away. Two full trugs of apples went into the compost bin after being sliced and diced by my trusty Spear and Jackson spade a.k.a Samson. Let me tell you that compost dalek is kicking off a hell of a stink right now!

Parsley and I made a huge push on our garden thereafter. We trimmed back the dead or decayed branches of the second apple tree - which is much larger and superabundant, although it lists to the right terribly. We completely cut back a part of the elder tree as it was rotting from the base, then had a go at the security hedge (name escapes me), the hawthorn and another branch which came right across from Sam's garden. Using a bow saw and the unmitigated power of combined pythonage we razzed through branches, logs, twigs, getting loads of scratches like they were merit marks. 'Ed, you look tired, you should take a break,' 'I will, I just gotta razz through this last bit here,' etc. Nothing to do with Razy Gogonea, honest. As if that wasn't enough we later razzed down a huge part of the buddleia tree in order to make it more bushy for next year. It was the hardest I'd worked all year, finishing only at around nine p.m with somewhere in the region of fifteen or sixteen gardening bags all lined up. Whew!

Introducing Beeyarna Man

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwRMYz1vfcQ

Anybody remember this little gem from the 80s? Well, our version is Beeyarna Man, brother to Sir Cakeatonne, otherwise known as Sam. A month or so ago we hit the allotment, digging up some rock hard soil so we could plant some llleeeeeks. It was a beautiful, hot day with much huffing and puffing. As we hadn't trimmed the walkways in a while, there were lots of obscured and ankle threatening trenches about. Sure enough as Parsley and I were singing our newly created theme tune for Sam: 'The handyman can, the handyman can, especially when his name is Beeyarna Sam,' (to this tune: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9B_6PH4dhU) Sam went flying down a trench and stuck his arms in the air. He looked every bit like he was flying! Not once but twice! Mad props kid!

G UNIT MEETS P UNIT & Club Classics...IN THE DOME

Man alive, I feel like a bag of meal. All this drinking in the sun has taken it's toll! Which reminds me of a little session Parsley and I had in the dome. But first I am glad to announce P Unit paid us a visit in June. We had tea in the garden with the babies going mental. Joseph and Alice got on very well with each other, thus strengthening relations between the units! Proper little bit of diplomatic smooching going on!

Later on I got a call from Parsley, inviting me over to the Domestead for some wine. We sat and roared with laughter in the blazing hot solardome. There was a carpet of sweat on my back....nice. The wine flowed wonderfully, and then club classics on Heart fm took over BIG TIME. There was loads of whoops, roars and yeaaarghs! They were churning out those cheesy catastrophes like there was no tomorrow. Parsley kept complaining she was knackered then promptly leapt on to the caravan steps in the middle of the dome and threw her hands up in a victory dance. It wasn't long before we were sipping rum from St Lucia...

After verbally jousting with Cakeatonne : "I've cycled five miles, had five pints and will give you a bunch of fives in your greasy face if you eat any more of my fish and chips!", and chasing Smethwick, we set up candles in the dome and carried on dancing. Horrifically drunk by 2/3 we managed to destroy a table, some lamps and our brain cells. Megawatti!