Man At Work

I never fail to be amazed at how hard Bertie works and what DIY talents he has. He is also following closely in the footsteps of his mother and has become a dab hand at recycling all the junk he finds lying around to create something much more useful. Now he is working full time and the sun sets so early, he is not seeing much of his garden (ahh!) but he got plenty done over the past few months, digging and clearing and chopping and weeding and building. Some highlights...

Growing lettuce in October? This is not Guadeloupe you know!It's all about motivation - even reluctant gardeners will help their daddy if the reward is some tasty raspberries next summer!
This used be a greenhouse but who needs two?! So Bertie removed some concrete, laid some pebbles (mostly dug up all around the garden - where do they come from?), put down the random bit of tarpulin found in one of the sheds and then finallylaid 60 kilos of sand! And it barely even covers the bottom! The kids have enjoyed playing in it but it is covered for winter now. When it reopens I think we will have to triple the amount of sand, especially as they have great difficulty keeping it in the pit! (NB Any guesses as to why that wooden pane is there??) This is one of our four compost heaps, mostly left over from the previous tenants, which Bertie has been working on. We think this one may contain a fox or two.

I had my heart set on a bird table so Bertie kindly nailed this together for me. We have had the fun of watching our friendly robin and some bluetits come regularly but our most frequent visitor is of course the darned squirrel. Even JoJo runs to the door and shouts "OI!" in imitation of his frustrated mum when he sees it coming now!

The begins of our leaf mould container, which Bertie hammered together from crates from the local vegetable sellers. It is now totally enclosed and full to the brim after all the blustery weather, and we are looking forward to seeing how it looks in a year's time.