KEEPING THE DRIVE ALIVE...

[ColinB]

Yes we are a bit ahead of you here Phillip - snowdrops already finished but the hellebores and primroses are still going. I'm moving pots of more tender plants out of the greenhouse where they have spent the winter and have replaced them with chilli and tomato plants that I germinated in the house during January. Broad beans through in the veg patch and some fruit trees starting to show the first signs of blossom. We have been weeding to get on top of the nettles and other weeds as a few hours now makes an enormous difference later in the year although it has created a few gaps at the moment.

I have cut the grass once but its still slow to get away partly because of our plague of rabbits. I'm avoiding supermarkets for obvious reasons and its only a shortage of cat food that would drive me to go to one, but it has occurred to me that I could get my air rifle out and bag a few rabbits for our two boys!

[Phillip]

That's a lovely plot Colin. Pictures like that make me miss England.

I never had much success at growing veg. I back onto a golf course in a sheltered woody end of the old nine. The amount of critters I get made it hard going; foxes, rabbits, squirrels, chipmonks, gophers and even deer; nothing much survived. Potted tomatoes were the most successful, kept up near the house.

Here's a look at the garden in better weather:

Garden_Spring_WEB.jpg (367.1 KiB) Viewed 7516 times

Can't wait until the snow is gone and I can get the Singer out...COVID-19 permitting!

[ColinB]

It looks lovely Phillip! My garden has been my longest running project starting in 1986 when I bought a semi-derelict house in the Fens with 2 acres of empty field. My dream was to create a wildlife garden, so this has entailed years of obsessive planting of native trees and hedges and resisting chemicals to create a small ecosystem of insects, mammals, amphibians and birds that delights me every day! Roughly the same view but 34 years apart!

[Phillip]

Just got one word to say Colin:

WOW!

That is a labour of love!

[mikeyr]

ok, restoring Singer's in record time and doing a dammed good job of it and now creating awesome gardens and playing music, what is it that you don't do ?

Me, I created a tiny space for a vegetable garden yesterday, moved my car trailer into a corner and that was it. I used to have a garden on the side of the house, but now that is my parking space for my "isolation ward" (camping trailer), so I will have to make do with less than half the space I had before. Oh, I did dry out my Pizza oven, that took 2 days to get it up to temp, still not sure how it got wet as I don't see any cracks and its mostly covered anyway but the floor was soaking wet from last weeks rains. Had to make small fires to slowly bring it to temp so as to not crack anything, hours and hours of just watching the small fires but with beverage in hand.

[ColinB]

The garden is pretty much down to the plants - you just stick them in and wait 30 years! v

[tvdwerf]

My back-garden is a little bit smaller, just one acre, and the trees are half of the age, but the one laying on the front got this size in just 15 years...
But it takes also a lot of time to keep him wild and with the possibility to walk between the trees.
The building at the background is from my neighbour, but in summer you don't see him.

[ColinB]

That looks really nice Teake - I love the water which is a great asset for wildlife.

[Phillip]

Lovely Teake!

Agree with Colin...love a water feature. I've wanted to put in a natual looking pond or swimming hole for a long time.

So...does owning a Singer and gardening go hand-in-hand? lol! Music seems to feature too. Certainly we're a diverse and creative lot!

[tvdwerf]

Working in gardens with trees is working with wood.
And working with wood is working on Singers..
These both are 75 cm+ thick, the left one is for making Singer parts, the right one is just an oak, who I found somewhere.
Maybe for making a heavy table when I have time

[tvdwerf]

The water is my buffer for dry summers, the pool is around 40 meters long and 150 cm deep, an acceptable buffer, filled with fish, some wild duck's, and a 40 meter long tube for the heat exchanger, for cooling my floors in a hot summer.
The plan is to bring another long tube in the ground for more cooling and heating capacity for my double working heat pump.
And the location for the heat-pump and the heated floor?
My workshop, together with 2 Singers and a Morris

[Peter McKercher]

A little table top pre war racing for a diversion. Unfortunately no Singers. George Turner models has a Le Mans replica on the drafting table, but no timeline.

racing.jpg (421.7 KiB) Viewed 7260 times

dunlop.jpg (393.7 KiB) Viewed 7260 times

[ColinB]

This made me green with envy: I want the track and the cars please!

[Peter McKercher]

Dad bought me my first pair of Bentleys Christmas '62. I looked high and low for the Alfa, but they were very hard to get in Canada, so I never found one. I got rid of my Scaleys in '68 and regretted it. Then Ebay came along.

[Phillip]

Well Colin, as COVID lingers on I tend the garden and we're starting to see the daffs finally coming up!

Spring Garden_WEB.jpg (263.9 KiB) Viewed 7083 times

It's the beginning of May and it's been a cool spring.

Once the garden and beds are done, I'll move into the garage...