JPM Gardens

As evidenced by the number of posts I manage to make here you can be pretty sure that I a not that much of a dedicated Blogger, I have lots of other calls on my time, family, work, bands, orchestras etc. etc.

My work will always take quite a lot of time and effort, to a great extent that is the nature of self employment, when you are self employed there is no Human Resources Department, no Marketing Department, no Accounts Department, no IT Department to help out we have to do it all.   Well I have made one small adjustment and have started another blog, but one that will not require much in the way of regular updating but one that I hope people will enjoy looking at.

Basically it is just a series of photos of jobs I have done, flower beds, patios and steps.   A little bit of this and that, all the things in a garden that need doing I that I do.

Pop over and take a look at JPM Gardens

Frosty

Wednesday mornings I go to an early morning prayer meeting at my Church, at the moment this means getting up early (for me) and getting out while it is still dark and before breakfast.   By the time we are finished it has got light and we can begin to see something of the day.   This morning that meant frost and mist.   Walking back home through the local park I was struck by the beauty of the trees covered in frost, I was quite sorry that I didn't have my camera with me.

When I got home I could see some details of the garden picked out by the frost, turning the ordinary into the extraordinary.   While I am not particularly looking forward to going out into the cold again to do some garden work, I am cheered by the beauty of these images.

 

Later today I will be cooking for the final session of the Alpha Course we have been running, this will be quite a big deal, since it is the last night I will be preparing a three course meal including a hot dessert, and as yet I haven't even done the shopping.   So I am in for another busy day, set in a busy week, and next week I start my two days a week in the office, as well as all the gardening work; and this is meant to be my quite time!

A thing of beauty

I may have mentioned that this is a busy period for me, so time for both blogging and Playing are rather limited. I do hope to find a little time next week, but at the moment I am so busy and have so much admin to catch up on I don't know how or when.   I did manage my second outing on Bass Guitar this weekend, I shall try to post about that later, today I want to show you some f the work I have been doing.

As well as all my regular maintenance work I do other extras, I have recently started working on a project that all in all will probably take me till the end of the year to complete. Stage one was to demolish and remove a concrete shed, I sub'ed this out, and am very glad I did as it actually turned out to be a bomb proof workshop left over from the last war. The house is very near what was a major airport at the time and the owner was engaged in important technical war work so he had a very large solid work shop. Once this was demolished and the ground cleared it was my turn, I put in a wooden base for a new wooden shed, and have just built a compost system. Now I know not every one will agree with me but I think this is not only practical gardening, and good ecological practise, but is also a thing of beauty.

I know that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I find beauty in this, so maybe there is a chance for all of us and that in someone's eyes we are all beautiful

The House that Paul Built

 A couple of weeks back I was installing the concrete base for a new green house. This base is approximately 3.5m but 2.5m but 10 cm at the thinnest but about 30 cm at the thickest (to allow for the slope) the nearest level place I could put the concrete mixer was about 20 - 30 meters away from the site of the green house. this meant that all the liquid concrete had to be carried in buckets 20 meters and up 35 steps ~ by me.    By the end of the day I was totally shattered and quite glad of my visit to the osteopath.    This is the first time I have had to do a job like this and I was hoping that I had done it right, as I also had to build the greenhouse.  

Well I have now more or less completed the greenhouse as well. This is the first time I have built a green house so I didn't know how long it would take, or quite how complicated it would be.

 

Of course it would have helped if the instructions had been printed in English, rather than something that looked like English, had all English words, but didn't make sense in any language I know. It also would have been good if the holes had been the same size and shape as the glass, I had to make a few adjustments.

Overall I am pretty pleased with the results so far, and the customer is very happy. I still have to put in the automatic vent controls ( they have to be placed in a fridge for half an hour before being fitted) and there are a couple of things, like a replacement for the pane of glass that got broken, I am waiting for before I can really be finished.

Now I am feeling very tired, with a lot of aches and pains from lifting, stretching and getting into some pretty odd angles, so I am looking forward to another session with the osteopath tomorrow, I am definitely in need of the the ministrations.

Progress - sort of

Last week I put up some photos of the job I am currently engaged on, well despite the bitter weather I have been able to make some progress so here are a few more

New raised bed, with rose

This job was originally in three parts. First clear the garden area at the back of the house - this meant removing three large conifers quite a few ash trees and lots of lilac that was spreading everywhere.   As the undergrowth disappeared it became obvious that one of the pear tress and the cherry tree also had to go.   There was also a paved path of rather nasty old concrete slabs and lots of large bits of broken concrete.   The resulting cleared area was then going to be seeded with a meadow flower mix with stepping stones through to the bird feeders and nesting boxes.   On one side of the garden there is a shared drive to access  garages, this is often used as a public cut through and hiding pace for those engaged in nefarious activities.   To add to her feeling of security I put up a trellis the full length of this fence.   The fence is not straight or level so the trellis also looks a little off, but it will make her a bit more secure.



New trellis full length of fence

The next stage would be to clear the wasted area beside the house, breakup and remove the pored concrete and remains of the brickwork that had once been raised beds.   The house had been extended into this area something like six years ago and it hasn't been used since.   In the course of clearing the area I found quite a lot of builders waste from when the extension was built.   This really annoys me, it would only have cost the builder a small amount to tidy up and finish the job properly, instead it is left for the next contractor to sort out his rubbish.   Well after clearing all the vegetation - mostly brambles and nettles but again a couple of trees - another lilac and a sycamore along with a Philadelphus I could start breaking up the old concrete, this proved to be of variable quality and thickness.   I had expected to have this all broken up by now and looking to start finding my levels.

Trellis attached to old wonky fence

Breaking up old concrete

The final stage was to be a deck across the width f the back of the house and going round the side to overlap the paved area.   This would allow me to leave the existing drain and man hole covers, ad make up for some pretty wonky levels without too much excavation.   I had a good idea of the finished garden in my minds eye and rather liked the "feel" of it, I was planing to have a rail at the edge of the deck, which would be on two levels with the slats running in chevrons, the straight lines of the deck contrasting with the softness of the meadow which would blur the harsh straight lines of the fence and the deck.

Well on Thursday the customer threw me a bit of a googly.   She now wants to replace the fence on the other side of the garden and have paving all the way around with no deck.   Someone had told that you get rats under decks and that has put her right off.   This meant that I spent all day yesterday getting prices, making calculations and typing up fresh estimates.   The only actual progress I made on the job was to get rid of my first load of waste (she won't let me have a skip)

This is the biggest job I have had since starting the business, and is rapidly becoming the most complicated as well.

Current Work

Along with all the usual details of garden maintenance I am currently engaged on a (for me) rather large job.   We are still mostly at the clearing stage but I have now started to put in some of the garden features. It is always a good feeling when things start to go in, rather than come out.

Today I will just present you with some of the before photos - unfortunately I was so keen to start clearing that I had already done quite a lot before taking these. I'll have some afters soon

Weird

I spent a (very) little time in our garden today, amongst the dead leaves I haven't cleared up, all the weeds and shaggy grass we do have some flowers.   In fact we have quite a few flowers out, at the moment Winter Jasmin, Cyclamen, Primulas - not too weird eh? we also have daffodils and roses.

I know this has been a weird year as far as weather goes, we have had a daffodil out on new year before, but I think this is the first time I have seen a pink rose flowering through winter Jasmin.

I start back at work tomorrow, nothing scheduled but plenty to get on with, then there is a shed to mend and on Friday I start what will be the biggest job I will have undertaken since starting the business.   Starting off I have a fair bit of clearing to do, then we will be putting in a large deck and finishing off with a paved area.   I will be doing this job more or less in reverse ideally I would start with the paving then the deck, but the layout of the garden dictates the order.   This is a big job and I will be putting a lot of work into it, and maybe a few posts as well.

On a personal level my wife had to be rushed into A & E and will have to g into hospital for an urgent opp within the next 10 days.   At any moment she could get the call to go, she will then have to stay in Hospital for at least a week, and will then have to be off work for a further three weeks or so.   All in all it looks like we're in for a busy start to the year.

Hard work

Today has been hard work, in many ways just hard slog, but also good rewarding stuff.   One of my customers has been concerned about her pond for ages, it would be filled up, then g down a few inches in short time.   Obviously there was leak, rather than tr to patch I decided tat the best thing to do was to empty the while thing our and put in a fresh liner.   This would also give me he opportunity t level up the edges; when it is was put in there doesn't appear to have been a spirit level available!.

The pond itself is a nice natural type pond with broken paving slabs around the edge over gravel ad some feature rocks.   There are a few plants and lots of frogs, newts and even some toads but no fish.   Today I emptied out the pond, lifted all the slabs and rock, and cleaned up the gravel.    I managed to raise the side that was low with some soft sand and put in the new liner and filled with water.

By this time I had lost the light so I will have to go back tomorrow to finish dressing the pond.   The rocks and paving will go back more or less as they were but I have divided the plants which should leave a bit of room for the amphibians.   I will try to get a couple of photos when I am finished.

Although I really want to get this pond finished I could have done without working tomorrow, as I want to make sure that I am proper set for Sunday, and I need to pick up all the band kit in the afternoon as well, oh well who wanted an easy life anyway?