Daydream fund challenge part 4

DaftyDuck

I wonder if I'm the one who's (not) going quackers? Well, I'm not, though I have been fairly busy sorting work out, then looking after OH. Work-wise on my side, all nine of us managers decided to start to close all our lab groups way back at the end of February - we did have some insider knowledge of what was coming, to say the least. We are pan-European (very) small science, so there's a lot of travel (not for me; I've semi given that up, and most of my work is theoretical or managerial), and I'm not much needed lab-wise, except when Big Science or Pharma gets excited with us, and they have other things on their plate right now. Many of my colleagues are medics, so most have returned to their respective health care systems, although some with specialist knowledge have headed where that's most relevant. My field is insect transmissible diseases, so I haven't got much of  use to say. Useful, really, as OH runs vaccine safety for one of the Big Pharma players, and she's slightly busier than usual just now... mainly with the speed they are expected to pass through hoops that normally take years now taking weeks. Everything is being run in parallel, rather than in chronological order. There is a serious mountain of money being thrown at this. Anyway, so I spend most of my time keeping her working, while I don't.... which is a lot less fun than it sounds. She's often in meetings through the small hours of the night, given the global effort going on.

But, Daydream news... I have been popping in, reading, keeping up, just not posting. Yes, I did arrive with rather a lot of plants - 2,500 labelled pots, if I remember. It was three self-drive van-loads! I confess, four years later, not all are planted either. 
Anyway, I've gone for veg growing in a serious way. I have the space, currently have the time, and have a large number of friendly OAP neighbours. I stuck a mini plough on the back of a tractor, and ploughed up a small field. It looked more like the Somme than a ploughing competition result. Nothing was very (not even slightly) straight, nor evenly turned. But, by the end, I at least understood it. Possibly. Anyway, that's now been planted out, and there's enough basic and interesting veg to feed the population of my little lane. I had one greenhouse up, but two more in storage, so one more has gone up. The third, I had forgotten, has  plastic glazing, so may not be up to the winds we get here. 

We have goat kids and some lambs this year - didn't breed many of each, thank goodness - so that gave both of us even more sleepless nights. Here is one of the Golden Guernsey kids at one day old...
(Brilliant; we can now drop images directly! One small grace for an otherwise-unlovely new site!) Wildlife has really taken off; latest additions are marsh harriers breeding close to the house, and little owlets sitting on all the fences - ever so cute and they look so sulky. 
Anyway, lunch break is over, off to stick a fence up. Stay safe, everyone.

pink_poppy

What a transformation, Fay, your garden looks lovely and I too am jealous of your hanging chair 
Love the photo, Dafty. Good to see you back.

Fay

Davesnave said:

Wow! That's some serious garden landscaping Fay! That patio looks great; indeed, very similar to what I'm after here, once we can afford it. I see you've already stained the fences like you did in your last garden, so you must have found that worked well with the plants.Your landscapers have put a decent fall on the patio too, which means faster dry-out after rain and no puddles.

You brought a lot of plants with you!  I only know two people who moved more than that and the other guy hasn't checked-in here for a while. I've seen him about though, so I think he's OK and not gone quackers in the lock-down!

After that impressive show, I hardly dare put up a photo of what we've been doing, which is sinking posts for trellis in what will become herb garden. No clay here till you hit 0.45m, but see how many stones come out of one hole!

Thanks Dave, I decided to focus the first year on the garden. I loved my black fences for making the borders recede and the plants pop. No one else has painted their fences at all so it’s funny when I look out of my windows and see it amidst a sea of the wooden fences. I am pleased with the patio, it works well and gives me more than enough space to reconfigure the futniture. My greenhouse was my post divorce treat to myself and I love it. Would be making more use of it if it wasn’t for the lockdown as I haven’t been able to get hold of things, same as everyone else I expect. 
Im so glad I brought so many plants with me. Thanks for your advice with moving lots of them! I haven’t actually lost anything but in some bad storms in February one of the chairs flew into the border and may have killed the angels fishing rod, which is gutting. I’ve been surprised that most things have taken to the clay soil. I added a ton of organic compost on top and that helped too I think. The plants I moved have really helped the garden feel more mature than it is. 
Looks like you’ve been really busy in that area and it’s alrwdy looking great. I love the pergola over the path. One thing I’m struggling to add is depth as you just see the whole garden all at once as it’s not very big. 

Fay

2500 plants! Now that’s a serious amount of moving lol I still have 2 penstemon and 2 bronze grasses to find homes for but this lockdown has meant I managed to plant the last of the plants I still had in pots. In that respect it saved me some money as I am sure I would have bought new ones but used what I had to do a small bed next to the bench after I had it put up...about 2 weeks before lockdown happened. So I am glad that got done and the raised bed. Helped keep me occupied. 
Its lovely to be back here too. 

greenbee

@DaftyDuck - I have the glass from a 6ft x 8ft greenhouse in my garage if you're passing at any point... 

ukmaggie45

We found some Cosse Violette climbing beans seeds - supposed to be planted in 2016, so I "planted" three of them in a glass with kitchen paper to test viability.  OH went ahead and soaked some of them overnight and planted them out in pots - we're bringing them in overnight since weather gone colder with threats of frost. But once it warms up a bit more we'll leave the pots out - don't want to coddle them.

Anyway, all three of my test beans (planted 8th May) have grown roots today! So we're hopeful the ones in pots will be OK too.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/liverpool-leftovers/49882465601/in/datetaken-public/

Ted_Head

Goodness what lovely photos everyone. Lovely goat kid & lovely gardens. Love the black stain on the fence Fay. 
Dave your garden looks amazing and I have still been clearing stones from my new bed - I can't believe that we're still above sea level.
Snowed today and as we'd eaten everything that we had just about - although there's always something you can avoid if you have to, we decided to do a big shop in case all the folks with holiday homes come charging up here and infected us - so off we went in the sleet. It's quite scary when you haven't been anywhere for three weeks.
The roads were very quiet. OH complained about there being no cheese - I don't know why but there wasn't any. I bought some plants out of Morrison's eventually as it didn't seem manned - the bit they have outside, so that was a bit annoying as I had to trail the bags of compost in and the plants and look for someone to pay. I sort of went all huffy at one young lad who didn't seem to know where the staff had gone to and just kept shrugging and saying I don't know really. I hung about for ages outside and in and was just contemplating ditching the lot when someone agreed to take my money. There was a whole queue of us in the foyer all tutting away but socially distancing - as you do.
I did get some lovely clematises really cheap but in the main their plants didn't seem as good as they have been in the past.
I bought a Bramley Apple tree & a Morello Cherry out of a cheap shop but I hope they'll be alright as they are bare rooted and looked a bit peeky. I've left them in the porch as it's freezing outside tonight.

Davesnave

We were a bit naughty the other night and went 7 miles to buy some fertile Cream Legbar eggs for DW's birthday incubator. Apparently, it's hard to find a good strain of these birds, so we had our detective hats on for a few weeks previously, eventually turning-up an enthusiast breeder quite close by. He'd also bought the entire stock of Vorwerks from the source we used 9 years ago, so we'll be going back for some of those later.

This means we may have to sort out the hen run before next winter.....but let's not count our chickens. Last time we just stuck eggs under a Silver Dorking who spent half the year being broody. Now, that's a breed rare as chickens' teeth these days, possibly because they have 'attitude.' I remember now....we sent our two really troublesome ones to Hatherleigh Market!

Frost damaged tip growth on trees and shrubs here Monday night, Ted. The fleeced stuff in the poly was OK though.

pink_poppy

I went shopping for the first time in 7 weeks the other night, it's certainly a different experience to how shopping used to be. Funny you should say about the cheese, Ted. I've been asking DH to get some Scottish white cheddar from Aldi every week, but every week he comes back saying there wasn't any, so he buys the more expensive Cathedral City (that I know he prefers) from Tesco instead. Funny how when I went shopping, Aldi had loads of Scottish white cheddar... He must think I'm daft... 
Beautiful morning here, definitely feels colder, but bright sunshine and no snow, thank goodness!!

Davesnave

There are sudden shortages, though not every week. Not an egg to be seen in Sainsburys 2 weeks ago, but hardly a problem here, I'll admit. Yogurt is very hit & miss, as is the brand of tea I drink, so when I see it, I take two......Hmmmm that's probably how the shortages occur!

It'll be interesting to see how many people descend on the West Country at the weekend. DD2 seems to think collecting her tomato plants might count as an essential journey,especially if she exercises by running round the field twice. The illegal rave I predicted never happened around these parts. I'm not sorry about that, but slightly surprised how compliant the young folk are. Now, in my day, we really knew how to misbehave! I almost remember a love-in on Dartmoor in '67......