Looking rather nice

View across the petunias in the new border.










Another view of the house.








The coach house looking great.







The lavender hedge

A visitor to the Dingle

Here is Dolly - who spent a few days with us in late May

Behold ... the Crystal Palace

Well nearly - here are the first shots of the lovely new greenhouse. At present it lacks staging, beds and plants but hey thats detail!

View of the new greenhouse looking down past the chicken shed to the house.





Here you can see the greenhouse behind the chicken shed.

Good progress in the greenhouse

I managed to get some good planting done today in the greenhouse - we now have the following on the go: salad leaves, radishes, sweet corn, tomatoes (various), red & yellow peppers, chillis (various), cucumber, aubergine, runner bean, courgette, marrow.










And next week the new greenhouse arrives ... and it should look like this. We are putting it behind the chicken shed on the hard-standing so it is convenient to get to. I will post photos as soon as I take them.

Gardening - well Jo gardening actually

Yes the gardening season is upon us again. So its more time at the garden centre, in the veggie patch, and in the greenhouse. Here is Joanne getting into the swing of things.

Purchasing a few new plants








Planning which seeds to plant when







Shuffling some of our many many snowdrops







Picking some leeks for tea

Clearing the Pigstys

Today was Day 1 of clearing out the Pigstys ready for Dingle pigs. We drew on Shotter-power to assist, and Andrew and Harry threw themselves into it. Caz and Sophi (not a Shotter but helped out too) provided some more gentle assistance.

More to do yet ... but a really great start.

Fruit and Veg progress

Mid-way through the year and the vegetable and fruit growing proceeds well. We are eating potatoes and peas, some carrots, and the parsnips beetroot and runner beans are coming on well. Even the sweet corn is growing nicely.

On the fruit side the currant bushes are doing well, including the eleven new blackcurrant bushes Jo has grown from cuttings.

Walnut picking

This year we beat the squirrels to some of our walnuts, after last year when we got none! We sent Harry up the tree, and also used a very long pole to hook them down. We have now made loads of picked walnuts which are "maturing" in the cellar.




Where's Wally (oops Harry)

Anti-bunny defences

We have completed our anti-bunny defences of the vegetable patch. There has been too much nocturnal nibbling of carrots, cabbage etc. and while the bunnies are cute we are not a charity :-) Hence chicken wire, stakes and tie-wraps were deployed. The results are quite reasonable we think!

Lawn mowing help arrives

Automation arrives at the Dingle - Shaun (our sit-on mower) will be a big help with the grass.

Here is the driver











Spot what's wrong with this photo? clue - Jo isn't driving!

Weekend work

We had a busy weekend in the garden - ably assisted by Sharon and Alec. With our new sit on mower (pictures to follow) plus the Suffolk Punch and the Brush Cutter we have got the lawn pretty neat, though choosing probably the hottest weekend of the year to do it was poor planning.


Here is Alec doing his action man bit - he was a strimming legend.





And here he is relaxing later!








Sharon and Joanne keeping an eye on the food

The Veggie Patch is now operational

After a hard weekend's work the veggie patch is planted and hopefully growing.

• We have: potato, carrot, parsnip, brussel sprout, caulifower, broccoli, globe artichoke, asparagus, onion, beetroot.
• Still to come: pea, runner & french bean (still in the greenhouse), squash, courgette.

Greenhouse growing

Things are growing well in the greenhouse. We are growing veg/salads and flowers, and having some success from seeds at our first try.

Here you can see tomato plants, chillis, dahlia, sweet pea, and basil.

Here is the other side of the greenhouse - showing the peas and beans getting ready to be planted out, plus sweet corn and some other things.

Good work down the lane!

We have done some good work on the lane in the last couple of weeks. We have replaced the original gate at the top of the lane - it was "parked" there for ages but the posts on which to hang it had long-since rotted away. You can see the new cental gates - a pedestrian gate to the left and a standard 5-bar gate to the right (just out of shot). In case you wondered - Chris fitted these for us.

Work has also progressed at the bottom of the lane. This is the first clear view of the end of the lane for years. Until we got Andy down with his chainsaw and chipper it has been the habitat of the badgers rather than humans.

Steps refound

Here's an interesting one ... while working on the path down to the little house in the woods we have uncovered some original stone steps. There are also the remains of some wooden ones, but of course they have fared less well over the years. We are aiming for a set of steps down to the house (just visible in the middle of the photo) with a wooden handrail so it is safe even when a bit wet.

I wonder who has walked down and up these over the years?

Winter work at the Dingle

This weekend we got stuck into the garden - this time to clear old wood and nettles from the area where we will keep the Dingle chickens. The Shotters (Andrew and Harry) got stuck into the task, with the help of Smokey Joe.


You can see the space we are clearing - about 12 by 20 foot and plenty for quite a few chickens.






Caz joined in the outdoor fun collecting pine cones to use to decorate the Shotter fire place.

Getting ready for next year's crops

Well its autumn and time to get the garden ready for next year's fruit and veg ... which means plenty of digging and weeding. As you can see we are creating a decent sized veggie patch - all we have to do now is decide what to plant!



What you cannt see is the MOUNTAIN of bushes and weeds that with Colin's help we have cleared and are starting to burn.

Digger in the lower field

Well there is a time when even we need some outside assistance. And 8 foot high weeds in the field needed it! Joanne managed to convince a friendly man with a tractor to help and ... bingo ... a mowed field. Perhaps we should buy a tractor?

More nice flower photos

Views of the garden

With some sunshine and quite a bit of mowing, weeding, pruning, sawing effort the garden is starting to look good.