I thought I'd use some of our remaining static caravan windows, originally procured as a joblot a few years ago to make solar panels, to construct a cold frame to increase the amount of space we have to grow stuff under glass - as if two greenhouses weren't enough.... For the main framework, I'd previously found a source of used 6-foot scaffold boards from a depot a few miles away, who sell them off at a fiver apiece. They had boards for sale of up to 13 feet long, which would have worked out a little cheaper on a per-unit-length basis, but then I couldn't have carried them home in the car. So, after knocking up an outline design, I collected fifteen of these boards.
It's now two full years since the implementation of my '...Grand Plan...' (for an explanation and last year's end-March review, see this link), and the latest annual results are in ....
It was time to tackle the one remaining corner of the garden we'd hardly touched since we moved in here four years ago, i.e. the southern boundary of the original back garden. The old fence had been in a sorry state for a long while, and was leaning over even further after the winter winds. Inside the boundary was planted with a mishmash of old trees and shrubs which weren't flourishing at all. It was quite a dark and forbidding place, even in the summer months.
before we started.....
As a related project, earlier in the week we'd bought around twenty used paving slabs in an eBay auction, and these would be used to finally cover over the old pond we'd drained and half-filled-in during the autumn of 2013, which can be seen behind the apple tree.
A lot more activity this month, including my first disposals of any holdings since October 2013.... Firstly, here's the current spreadsheet as updated today, the last working day of the month :-
This is a belated post of the end-December position, since I'm currently on holiday and enjoying some warmth and sunshine... So without further ado, here's the investment pot spreadsheet for December 2014. See previous similar posts for descriptions etc...
Around six weeks ago, we spotted a small hedgehog wandering around on the lawn in the middle of the afternoon. It's a bad sign seeing any hedgehog out during daylight hours, and particularly autumn juveniles, so we picked him up and took him inside in a cardboard box. The wife fed him some cooked chicken while I set about building a hospital enclosure in the garden from some old materials and wire mesh, basically anything we had lying around. We kept him confined in a remote area of the garden down the side of one of the sheds, made a nest box from an upturned plastic container with an entrance arch cut into one corner, and stuffed it with shredded paper. He took to his new territory immediately and soon lost his fear of us, even allowing the wife to stroke his nose without him curling up into a ball ! We fed him on tinned cat food, mashed-up boiled eggs, pet shop hedgehog food* and assorted kitchen scraps, and after four or five days he'd returned to more nocturnal habits.
