What have you done today in the Garden?

Your fried apple pies sound good, GP.-- I wouldn't imagine that there would be much of a difference from what we have here.
CAYU--she was indeed.

No lottie time today as it is pouring with rain here today.

 

Going to order some seeds, 2 packs of calendula called daisy may only grows to 8 inches and bushy.

 

Doing nothing more in the garden than watching the birds at the feeders. Oh the enjoyment of small pleasures!

 

Its beginning to look like spring here.

 

Imagine....spring in the beginning of January. No. No. It beggars the imagination! Impossible.

 

Sjoerd,
I suppose any difference might be the type apple and spices.
It's far too Wintery here for gardening.

DirtMechanic, I think I love your garden and the woods surrounding.
May I ask how much land is your's? I'm a woods wanderer. I am
rejuvinated by nature meandering. I'm also thinking ahead to planting flowers to attract and feed Monarch butterflies. Also the Swallowtails and bees.

 

We live in a neighborhood where the lots are roughly 4 acres. City, but countrified.

 

For us it's going to be a mild, above average January.

 

Wow, that Acer is a beauty!!
K

 

Dirtmechanic, 4 acres with a bit of woods is heavenly.

 

Today I weeded the lettuce and sugar pea patch and put in the supports for the peas. I had a lot of help--Cali, our calico cat was right with me with her little pink nose in the basket that the weeds went into, and then sitting on my feet. She likes shoes!
I put the weeds in the chicken coop and listened to the contented clucking. I'm coming to the opinion that I exist to serve the chickens and cats. I suppose there are worse ways to live . . . .

 

Marlngardener, sounds like a good life.
The longer I live the more I care for wild life.
Oh, we are still picking Parsley.

 

Decided to tackle the moss on the garage roof. The birds have been helping out by removing it a bit at a time and dumping it on the path. But it would take them forever. They would have been more help if they'd also brushed it up instead of leaving it for me to do every other day.

When I say "moss" this is what I mean.





It didn't take long with a narrow blade hoe to scrape it down, a go with a stiff brush, then clear the gutter, an hour and a half.




I can't get at the other side, but whatever falls off will end up in my gutter between the two garages, this runs into the channel under the party fence.
Any loose bits of moss I've left will be swept into the gutter by the "torrential rain" expected this afternoon.

Over the week-end I updated the power supply in the garage. The wiring was over thirty years old. Everything in the garage, shed and tea-house fed from the one fuse box, via an industrial RCCB. Now the koi pool has gone, I've scaled down the number of outlets and fitted a modern consumer unit to control all the functions.

 

Looks like a big job doghouse. An over-your-head-job that is tiring on the shoulders. Congrats!!!

 

Today I just checked over the new consumer unit I installed in the garage. It's as well to go back and re-visit the work, just to be really happy, although it works just fine. I've separated the water heater above the baisin in the former filter room, the lights in the garage and that room, the power sockets and the garden lighting. There's also an "industrial quality" RCCB from the main fusebox, that protects everything including the power to the shed and tea-house.
I considered the latter necessary from the start as I had a mix of "power and water" (since 1986, when I built the koi pool) and all its equipment and I still test it regularly.



There are two low voltage transformers either side of the unit, one for a spotlight and the other for the fountain.

The three plug sockets supply tthe power for all the garden lighting and the fountain. I like them on sockets, they are easier to change around rather than being "hard wired."
They are controlled by three switches on the wall in the lounge behind the French window curtains. The power comes from the garage supply through a four core plus earth armoured cable under the concrete raft that supports the patio to the switches and back again. There's only four sixty watt porch lamps on this garden lighting supply, the rest is all low voltage. There were two 100w spots shining on the koi pool so we could watch the koi at night, (seen in the last photo), but I've removed them, they were no longer necessary.
I've a spare socket for the Christmas low voltage fairy lights, they can be switched on with the fountain or the spotlight if I swop the two end plugs over. I've had this facility for over 30 years. It's only garden lighting on this supply, all 5amp stuff.











I should add, we hardly ever use them, just occasionally on warm summer nights. Although since buying the fountain after closing down the koi pool last year, we do have that on sometimes during the day.

I like anything I've installed to be working perfectly.

For years, last thing at night I've been in the habit of turning one of the switches on, to check that the garage power hasn't tripped out. This was important when I had the koi pool to make sure the pumps were working, it was then possible with the lights on, to see the water returning to the pool.

I still do it as now, instead of all this in the self contained room in the back of the garage....

(I took this when I was closing down the pool, I'd already removed the UV sterilizer and the Oase air pump)


The 300 gallon quarantine tank is to the right and its filter in the corner.
It was all very "snug" in there.


....after a new floor and some decorating, we now have this. I'm self sufficent when I'm gardening, I can have tea, coffee, a cold drink, or a beer, without troubling my wife.



The freezers are for the meat and pies my wife bulk buys on line from Donald Russell and The Real Pie Company. No room in our freezer in the kitchen.



I still like to check all's well with them before we go to bed, as there's often quite a bit of value in them. If the lights come on nothing is likely to have tripped out.