Lockdown 2020 Part 1

Decided to write a blog about lockdown but it

 is going to be a positive account of all the things

 we have done while being confined to home. 

Everyone knows the reasons for lockdown and

 the restrictions imposed, and why, so why dwell on them when there are more positives to report?

    Our garden gives us a lot of pleasure and find it also gives us plenty of all-round exercise with the digging, weeding and planting it incurs. Harvesting the fruits of our labours later will be an edible benefit. The fresh air relieves any stress and gives us a good appetite and just sitting and looking at the plants and wildlife that live in it benefits our mental health. (I think that’s all the jargon!)

We also love to travel around this beautiful country we live in and thought this was something we might miss. However, although we have missed our trips the photos and memories of visiting places are still with us and several programmes on the TV have brought back some very fond memories. Memories are always with us and nights when sleep seems evasive is the time to relive one of those walks on a deserted beach, or along a track humming with bees and butterflies.

So March saw restrictions begin - just when the garden is looking its worst after the winter and needs a good tidy up, so no problem there then, plenty to do. I have almost decided that spring is my favourite season, but then the rest come along and with each one bringing something special it is hard to make up my mind.

Early March brought frost …

 … but by the end of the month many of the spring flowers were looking really good in the surprisingly wonderful weather we were having.

We even saw a few butterflies. It can't last surely?? We spent every day out in the garden, not going too mad at the beginning of the season but every day brought more sunshine, so more and more time was spent outside. Our backs and legs certainly felt the effort but the garden was looking better all the time. All those little jobs that usually get put 'on the list' were suddenly getting done!

Our glass structure was one of those jobs - the high winds we had experienced meant it needed straightening up and firming in! 

Several paths in the garden are made up of bark chippings and having added to them over the years they have now become quite 'earthy' where the chippings have disintegrated. They needed scraping back to the weed control fabric, and re-chipping. Another job that kept being pushed to the bottom of the 'list.'

A lot of work but I decided I had the time now, so I began. Some of the material under the chippings was 3-4 inches deep and well compounded. Wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow was filled with what was nice crumbly bark/earth. Hard work but the effort was worth it. Except that we soon ran out of new chippings to put on the paths! A phone call to a local nursery, doing home delivery, resulted in bags of chippings sitting on our driveway by the end of the day! Great service - but it meant we now had more to do. I had begun with what I thought would be the hardest section of path - with tree roots criss-crossing the path, so the next sections were much easier - relatively speaking! Several days passed with more and more loads of 'soil' being moved and dumped around the garden. More home delivery bags of chippings eventually led to paths that didn't look any different to before - but we know they are better for the work invested in them. 

At the beginning of the month we should have been sowing seeds but as it was still very chilly at night Peter considered heating the greenhouse. However, upon looking at it carefully there were so many gaps for the heat to escape and it was getting past its best. We don’t know how long it has been here but it was there when we moved in 8 years ago. The odd pane of glass has been replaced but apart from that it has had nothing done to it. Rather than invest heating in this one we therefore decided to buy a new greenhouse. Much on-line investigation ensued until we picked the one we wanted. They were still delivering so we put our order in! 

A few weeks later we had notification that it was arriving – and one morning 5 parcels and a crate of glass arrived on the back of a lorry. Doesn’t take up much space when packed up like that. Now we just needed to dismantle the old one and erect the new one – sounds simple eh?

Well the dismantling wasn’t too bad. I emptied the greenhouse of all its pots, trays etc etc. There was a lot of etc, etc and not having used some of them for a long time I had a good clear out. As much as possible has been recycled or is awaiting recycling. Peter meanwhile was removing all the glass and storing it to use as ‘spares’ for the new one. Taking the frame down was a little difficult as many of the bolts were so tight they just sheererd off when we tried to remove them.  The hardest part though was the base plate – it had been cemented into the concrete base but brute strength finally won.

Now everyone knows how easy flat pack furniture is to assemble …. Well our instructions for the new greenhouse looked very similar. After reading it several times and unwrapping the sections of frame we thought we were ready. Double checking every instruction and numbered piece of aluminium meant we could finally assemble the first section. You would think it would get easier after we got the first one done – right? Well either we were just too dense to understand the instructions or the instructions weren’t as simple as they looked! (I know what I think!) Well, over the next few days we continued reading again, and again, before attempting another section. The occasional undoing and redoing occurred and patience was in short supply at times – but eventually we had the frame erected.

Just the glass now and as Peter is confident with glass (from his crafting days) he thought this would be the easy part. For the most part it was, although there were some awkward pieces to reach and install, but eventually we were there. What a sense of achievement we both felt.

While Peter had been installing the glass I had rubbed down and repainted all the wooden staging that was going back inside. They certainly looked better to go in a new greenhouse, which we christened the 'Loch Doune'

The glass for our greenhouse came in a little crate and as we don’t like to throw things away we pondered on how to recycle it. Peter came up with the idea of a reflection pool. This is a water feature without fish or fountains, but which creates a reflection. Wood or branches around the edge and stones in the water give birds somewhere to perch or drink, thereby providing photo opportunities. A few hours work (!!), a coat of paint and the job is finished. 

The good weather continued day after day and anything in the garden that needed repainting – was painted. Clothes line poles, plant frames, decorative milk cans, vegetable frames, tables, bird feeder poles – they all received attention. New covers have been made for our raised beds around the garden and it all is looking quite smart.

We also installed a new solar water feature – a pebble fountain. Everything for it came through the post except for the pebbles and was very easy to set up. We scoured the garden for pebbles to finish it off until we can get some polished ones. We then changed our minds and used scallop shells instead.  Unfortunately the nozzle we then put on the fountain sent the water too high and too far, thereby emptying the water tank. A small adjustment sorted the problem and on sunny days the water gurgles nicely. Some solar lights around the edge reflect nicely on the shells in the dark. So, will it be stones or shells?

At the beginning of lockdown we had ordered a basic box of groceries from a well-known supermarket and the insulation for chilled produce was made of wool. Rather than throw this away  we used it to refresh our bird containers that we usually fill with nesting material. This is sheep’s wool that we pick off fences as we are out walking, but this insulation would be ideal. Not only that we made a couple of new holders and a whole new bird/insect house from an old bird table too.The birds loved the wool and we watched them over the next few weeks pulling it out and flying away with it. The baby birds this year must have been so cosy in their wool-lined nests. 

We make a note everyday of the wildlife – mainly birds – that we see in our garden and send our results off to the local environmental information centre, who collate all the records for D&G. At the beginning of April they began a Wildlife at Home Challenge on iRecord, so everyday I added what we saw onto their iRecord page – and began to look more closely at what was in our garden. We were encouraged to record mammals, birds, (even those flying over the house) reptiles, amphibians, bees, butterflies, bugs, beetles, spiders, slugs, snails, mosses, lichens, fungi and flowers. At the end of May when the challenge finished we had recorded over 150 species and entered almost 900 records. We found some interesting creatures and were often seen dashing around for a pot or camera! It certainly made us look more closely at the creatures, both old and new to us, and made us realise just how beautiful some of them are. The face on the wasp is amazing but who looks at a wasp?  Have you looked at  a hoverfly? Or noticed that they are not all the same? 

Many of the records collected during May were moths as we began to get warmer nights. We had begun moth trapping earlier than usual this year as the weather was so nice during March and April. The nights were still cool but the count slowly began to increase into April, but unfortunately then nights got chilly again (although the days were still sunny) so the moth trapping went on hold until later in April. 

The warmer nights in May brought the best catch of the year with about 130 moths caught. This is a good catch for us at this time of year and we have been surprised by the number of different species we have caught. 

The greenhouse by now is in full flow. We have some salad plants producing big enough leaves for us to eat, tomatoes that are flowering, cucumbers that are developing and trays full of seeds that are sprouting. Many seeds have gone directly into the garden in soil that has been weeded, rotovated and prepared for them. Seedlings are popping up everywhere now the soil temperature has risen and we are kept busy thinning out and transplanting. As the good weather continued throughout May and actually got hotter and hotter, the ground became baked hard and we had to resort to watering the ground in the cool of the evenings.

The flowers in the garden have been amazing this year too. Many flowered slightly earlier than usual with the good weather and they have all looked at their best – as if they are trying to cheer us up and give us some consolation for being kept at home. The green growth on most of the plants has been thick and lush, filling out gaps in the plots and borders.

The occasional – and I mean occasional shower (we cannot call it rain as it has not been very heavy or long lasting) has fallen overnight but the ground is still hard. At least the weeds are not coming through too quickly, but the rain when it does finally come will mean their resurgence I’m sure. 

Although we have been short of rain we have had to put up with a lot of wind this spring. Many days have been unusually windy culminating in a couple of days with the strongest wind we can ever remember since moving here.  It was blowing a real hoolie, we were sure something was going to blow away. The next morning produced the evidence – panes of glass blown out of our new greenhouse! Peter finally reckoned that he had perhaps loosened something to get the last pieces to fit and then forgotten to tighten them again! They have now been tightened and clipped to the nth degree!

The beginning of June finally brought us some rain. It began late afternoon with big spots on the patio and then was a steady drizzle for a while. The smell when we went outside was intoxicating - I believe the pleasant smell that accompanies the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather is known as petrichor. Well we smelled it, and it was good. The rain continued overnight and everywhere looked wet in the morning, and we have had a few showers since then. The garden has really appreciated the rain, watering with a can or hose never seems to be as effective, even if we use rainwater from the barrels we have around the garden.

As we entered June the lockdown began to ease and we began to get back some semblance of normality - although a very different normal to what we were used to. Seeing local friends and family again has been wonderful but travelling any great distance is still on the horizon. Having a garden to sit/work in, someone else in the house to talk to, no major health issues or worries about going to work, and living in an area of the country that has not been too badly hit by the coronavirus makes us feel very thankful.

To conclude here are 2 lockdown collages.