The green and rolling countryside of Worcestershire, England, is home to the cider apple orchards which surround the gardens of Pear Tree Cottage. They enjoy a sunny south westerly aspect with sweeping views across to Martley Hillside, Woodbury and Abberley clock tower. The Teme Valley lies just over the hill and, not far away, is the Herefordshire border. Although our climate is temperate, our seasons are often uncertain and always a challenge to a gardener! This began in 2010 & follows the weekly ups and downs of garden work chronicling both successes and failures but, above all, demonstrates the fun enjoyed by three people who regularly garden in all weathers
Meanwhile; in the rest of the garden and, despite the heavy morning frosts and snow, we do have some colour. Although, if this keeps up much longer, all the Magnolia blooms will be a delicate shade of brown. Still, it's a change to see some blue sky after the relentless rain.
Matt & Sarah came up for the weekend and.........they brought sunshine and muscles! With Chris's help too, we all moved about 50 - 55 wheelbarrows full of woodchip down to the Henclosure, the Woodland Border and the service path. The mountain of wood chip was courtesy of Chris who had been asked to fell a Western Red Cedar. Being Cedar it had a really lovely scent and the chickens love scratching around in their sweet smelling fresh new litter.
Sarah was our brave cave slave! She crawled into the low, dark cave, swept it all out and then stacked all the remainder oak rails, which the rest of us trimmed to size and carried down. This all took place following intense discussions and negotiations with one inveterate hoarder of oak. Compromises were reached over that which was stored and discarded! (Nuff said!) Then it was time to burn unwanted broken pallets last week's brash...............and have a beer! Checkout the video!
The first real spring-like sunny day meant I helped Chris lay some beautiful old tiles he just happened to arrive with! They're yellow and red terracotta and look really fab. After laying in ducting for Dave's electric cables, the other job was to clean off mortar from the already re-recycled tiles. These had already been recycled once by us in the previous greenhouse and before that by Kyle. We now have piles of Kyles tiles ready for recyling yet again at the far end of the greenhouse. The used mortar completely filled a whole wheelbarrow and, at the end of the day, a major clear up of brick ends, battens and leftover materials in readiness for greenhouse delivery!
Kyle's tiles!
Meanwhile, our design engineer at Hartley Botanic: Josh sent this picture of the down pipes under construction. Installation commences on Monday - can hardly wait! Further tiling will take place after this stage.
Meanwhile..............down the bottom of the garden: another project is well under way. A new little fruit enclosure for the raspberries is under construction. Chris used some reclaimed oak post and rail fencing to enclose it and planted more beech saplings in order to extend the present beech hedge around the Henclosure. He even brought some currants, rhubarb and a gooseberry bush. He plans to make a wood chip path and even a gate - eventually. The next stage is to strip the turf to improve the levels and then replace it. This will entail importing soil from the Henclosure but should mean easier mowing with the mower no longer wanting to slide down over the edge of the turf! Will it be finished in time for open gardens?????
After a day in the persistent rain yesterday and getting soaked through and covered in mud, it was a real pleasure to continue greenhouse work in sunshine today. Our star of a builder arrived with much needed bricks for the new greenhouse path - probably cos he didn't trust us to go and buy the right sort! I found 4 old tiles which he built in as features and I was allowed to brush off the mortar! We plan to keep the same greenhouse layout as before with a bed for tomatoes on the right hand side and staging on the left with the far end floor space left free for taller pot plants. So far, the grapevine seems to be surviving
The replacement greenhouse is now another step closer following a visit from Darren & Richard at Hartley Botanic. They came and checked on final levels and dimensions and gave Chris gold for the best greenhouse base! They not only admired his accuracy but also the details in the brickwork. We now need Chris to approve their construction! They even managed to dodge more vicious squalls and have promised to send photos of the manufacturing process & also shelving details. Roll on 18th when construction commences!!
After a bit of a trip 'up north', we came back to an amazing surprise. We found a beautifully finished greenhouse base complete with a dog's tooth course of bricks beneath the blues on the 'front' side. Chris had even found time to lay slabs between the base and the sleeper retaining wall. How does he do it? Even the door thresholds were all finished! We can't wait for Hartley Botanic to do their bit now! Josh Heywood, their design engineer has been most attentive when it comes to design detail and dimensions and we await their visit tomorrow. They have promised for installation to commence on 18th April. Hopefully, that will give us enough time to finish off before our first open garden event on 1st May (shiver!)
