The Advantages of a Service Path

The Lower Border - before work began.

A rare Saturday without rain meant that despite the wet ground, a little progress was actually made. Whilst the mild weather has returned, it was FAR too wet to consider much need mowing. However, I edged all the very long and shaggy lawn borders around the entire garden and Chris made a start on weeding the Lower Border working mainly from the service path at the back.

The service path in autumn

Service paths at the back of deep borders are an absolute boon. They save so much trampling and unnecessary soil compression. If you have the room, I couldn't recommend having one enough. We keep ours topped up with wood chip and it can't even be seen from the front of the border.  It's kept clear at all times and shrubs are pruned accordingly. This means that many have flat backs but their flat backs can't be seen from the front either!  A service path is also useful for making sneaky short cuts to the compost bays!

Having cleared the border of weeds, we were able to mulch it with 4 barrows full of home made compost. Again using the service path at the back along which to wheel the barrows and distribute the mulch.  I must say that this years compost just couldn't be better! It's a light, crumbly, friable, sweet smelling perfection - full of much needed nutrients.  It cost nothing but time and, in these quantities, would be prohibitively expensive to buy.

Chilling in the Garden!

Woodland Border seat

Looks like icing sugar!

Another even frostier day than yesterday.  Crisp and sparkling grass makes SUCH a pleasant change from soggy and muddy grass! Breaking the ice in the chickens drinkers and ensuring the wild birds were well stocked with fat balls, meal worms. peanuts, niger seed and raisins were priorities! Garden seats had thick coatings of sparkling white rime and leaves encrusted in sparkling highlights. Guess what!  The rain is back - sigh! More frosty photos here

Lower Lawn

Mr. Brown

Pear Arch

It was quite a frosty and foggy start this morning. The sun gradually broke through and the mist could be seen hanging in the valley across the hillside. Shady areas in the garden didn't thaw out all day and the grass remained crisp and sparkly. Despite freezing fingers, I rushed out with the camera before the usual Tuesday jobs. Why does everything look so pretty when dusted with hoar frost? I did feel a tad sorry for the Hellebores that had been silly enough to flower so early! More frosty vignettes can be seen here. Full screen is best.

Geranium leaves

All Preserved Out!

So, here we have the finished products - all 11 jars duly de-stickyfied, sealed and labelled in recycled jars. The jars will be recycled again for mini garden lanterns in the summer. For the labels; I used a photo of the actual lemons in the jars as a background for the text. Should see 'Himself' through the weekend!!

Who's for breakfast?

Home Grown Lemon Marmalade

I wouldn't normally make marmalade BUT when the lemon tree in the conservatory produces such a heavy crop, it would be criminal not to do something with them. For reasons I won't go into here, the marmalade requirement is no sugar!  This means buying Xylitol at vast expense - on offer at £20.89 for 2 bags gulp!  It's made from Birch sap and I'm told by 'im wot knows that the body metabolises it differently. Luckily, it advises halving the quantity otherwise, I would have needed 4 bags!!

Anyway I picked and weighed all the fruit and then followed Mary Berry's recipe substituting sugar for Xylitol.  She cooks the fruit first and it does make extracting the pulp and chopping the peel super easy. I brought the whole fruits to the boil and then popped them in the bottom oven for a couple of hours. I had a bottle of Certo (pectin) in case it refused to set - which it did. Does anyone actually know why, if no sugar is used, marmalade despite lemons having naturally high levels of pectin, just doesn't want to set? Anyway, Certo saved the day and by day I should explain, it took all day!  Step by step photos

Ginger was added to a third of the marmalade so we have a grand total of 8 jars of lemon and 3 of lemon and ginger marmalade.  Must do some labels now.  Anyway, despite a sticky kitchen full of steam, 'Sir' won't be needing bought sugar free marmalade for while. Not bad for a little lemon tree which only cost £2.50 a few years ago. (I only wish it didn't attract Red Spider Mite and Scale.........sigh!)

And...........yes I did leave plenty of lemons for G's &T's!

Dangerous Addiction Indulged!

The Hut

Woodbury Hill from the terrace

I dared to tiptoe out into the garden today with my new wide angle lens! Unusually, it wasn't raining and  was lovely and clear for about half an hour between the showers. Dangerously, I indulged my addiction to Photomatix and processed some of the bracketed images!  It hardly looks like an English garden in January as the grass looks so long and lush.  I picked a bunch of Narcissus on Saturday!  A Rhododendron bud is showing colour and many Hellebores and Pulmonarias are blooming.  Snowdrops are pushing up but not blooming yet which is interesting as they would normally flower before those which are blooming now. With the Meteorological Office forecasting real winter weather later this week, maybe, they're just more sensible! Fingers crossed  - I love snow and snowdrops! These HDR images are better viewed HERE full screen.

A suspiciously long & lush lower lawn!

I should perhaps mention our little hut as it is yet another recycled unwanted cast off which we restored/rebuilt in 2010. The roof was made from some sheets of corrugated tin which were also being thrown out.  The hut hides down in the lower border behind a large conifer and stores garden chairs etc. over winter.  It's what you might call compact and bijou but - nevertheless another useful rescue!

Our little orchard

Rain definitely didn't stop play...

...but it tried really hard!