the daydream fund challenge thread

rhiwfield

The blood, sweat and money (for materials) are beginning to run freely again as the conversion of our garden enters its fifth and final year. The whole garden slopes, in some places nearly vertically, so we've improved access with new paths, steps, walls, terraces and safety fences. OH and me are not as sprightly as we used to be and we had begun to find it difficult to maintain some areas, so the access improvements have saved us having to pay a gardener or even worse, move house. We wanted a balance of wildlife garden, ornamentals, living space AND a substantial area to grow fruit and veg. This meant using every bit of garden surrounding the house and being creative with the vertical spaces. It also means that the fruit and veg area is very much "in your face" and not hidden away but then thats ok with us and ideal for the kitchen.

After all this time there are just 2 construction jobs left and a final £150 to spend:

Job 1 is to extend and reroute the utility area trellis, creating room behind for shed, 6'x3' compost heap, and tool space. On the garden side (ESE facing) we will have an 18' x 18" bed of autumn raspberries (varieties anyone?). Should have the construction on this finished in a week

Job 2, which will take a bit longer, is to make a 14' x 14' terraced raised bed area which will see the end of the lawn apart from 3' grass pathways around.

We're not quite at the stage of saying its done, but give it another month and the bottle of champagne goes on ice! :beer:

Lotus-eater

Well I've got Joan J raspberries, this is the first Autumn we have had them and they are thoroughly recommended from us. Big and tasty.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

woooohoooo:j just about got enough money saved to pay one of the vans off, so will go to bank today or tomorrow,:beer: so no more 13.9% business loan rate ( for one van anyway)

so will prob try and pay off the other van loan, so hopefully only a few more months and i will be able to start paying into my daydream fund AGAIN....

lotus you are making my mouth water with the sound of those rapberries....yummy........

nothing much happening here except work...lol... but hoping to plant some garlic in the next week or two

Lotus-eater

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

lotus you are making my mouth water with the sound of those rapberries....yummy........

Oh yes, I love my raspberries....just the way I like my ladiees, large, plump and tasty.

Davesnave

Good to hear you are back on positive-thinking form CTC and that your 5 Year Plan is nearing its conclusion Rhiwfield. It is great to hear others' success stories instead of all the doom and grumpiness on the Debate House Prices board.

I think we need a 5 year plan here too, but for now I'll stick to preparing for winter. At the moment we are taking the roof off some old pigsties and turning them into temporary shelters for our stock plants. We also have a 'kind of' polytunnel 27' long, but the silly burgers had a huge bonfire when they left here; the sparks from which went through the plastic in about 100 places, so I'm not relying on it. To re-cover would cost about £125 and its home made frame isn't worth the investment. We will build new next year.:D

Meanwhile, up at the house, the 25x10 conservatory has been a great place in this weather, but when the rains return we'll be forced to remember that isn't entirely watertight, or ever likely to be, though the structure could last almost indefinitely. My solution is to fix a piece of polytunnel plastic beneath the rafters using roofing battens, which will take drips to the low edge where we'll install a gutter. Then, a downpipe will take the water into one of the indoor beds. Should work!:o

I am still slashing and burning on a regular basis, having recycled all the bottles I found last week. All the ragwort went on the last bonfire too. However, the pile of what I thought was all horse manure isn't all I imagined, as some of it is definitely rubbish from the failed nursery that was on this site. I wondered where that went! :mad:So far I have exhumed crushed pots, Mypex plastic, old carpet and lots of burnt wood, but I'm waiting for the glyphoste to work on the nettles before going further in.....I will keep you posted!

troglodyte

On the raspberry front, we planted two autumn varieties, one red one which I think was Autumn Bliss - that's quite nice; and one gold one which might have been Allgold or is it Fallgold? Anyway I haven't been that impressed with those. For a start only 2 of the 5 canes we bought actually grew, and the raspberries are OK but I don't think they are as tasty as the red ones.

rhiwfield

Davesnave wrote: »

I am still slashing and burning on a regular basis, having recycled all the bottles I found last week. All the ragwort went on the last bonfire too. However, the pile of what I thought was all horse manure isn't all I imagined, as some of it is definitely rubbish from the failed nursery that was on this site. I wondered where that went! :mad:So far I have exhumed crushed pots, Mypex plastic, old carpet and lots of burnt wood, but I'm waiting for the glyphoste to work on the nettles before going further in.....I will keep you posted!

Its frustrating when you have to clear up after other peoples mess. When we descrubbed our meadow we found an old den made out of asbestos sheets and the rigmarole we went thru to get it to the tip :eek:. For two winters we had a weekly gorse burn, nothing quite as satisfying to man as a good bonfire

We've got our local wardens coming in 2 weeks with their allen scythes for the annual cut, no doubt we'll find the odd bottle or two as well.

Rummer

I have lapsed throughly in the garden this summer and autumn and I have nothing in for winter at all. So disappointed in myself. Next year will be better and hopefully by then I will be starting to save money instead of using it to clear CCs! Glad to hear you are all getting places. I think we are going to put in Autumn raspberry bushes as our flower bed didn't work so we are going to fill the back garden with fruit bushes!

Rummer

Today I am going otu to do a last tidy up of the garden before the winter!

Davesnave

Rummer wrote: »

Today I am going otu to do a last tidy up of the garden before the winter!

Isn't this a little bit early? Where I am, the leaves are still on the trees and the weeds I've cut think they're coming back for an encore.

I'd love to be tidy for the winter, but that will be winter 2010/11, I think!

For the last umpteen years we've holidayed in early November, and apart from the big storm year of 2004, we've had pretty decent weather. I reckon most places could have another 4-6 weeks of reasonable conditions yet. Hope so.