To The Surbiton Manor Born

Note the quarter in the foreground on the left for scale. There have not been many blog entries, because we have been occupied with rushing around trying to batten the hatches for winter. We've had a series of projects, some of which have been caused by major setbacks. I'd been working on the paths crossing the bottom of the hill since early September. They are finally on the very edge of being complete. The garlic needed to be planted this week, which necessitated fencing in one of the moved 4x4 raised beds to keep the squirrels off. But that's done. You can clearly see the garlic here underneath the two inches of leaf mulch One thing that we were not planning on doing was moving three raised beds that we'd built next to the garage. You see, we have been facing a mouse infestation. The pest control people suggested that putting the beds there gave them shelter. You could clearly see the little neon signs pointing at cracks in the pavement and the bricks at the foundati

Hardscape construction continues, as we enter the final stage of the season. Over the past few weeks (it's taken a while because there was a marathon to run and we've been caged by heavy rain), I built this. It's not an expansion, but a relocation of beds under the tree on the other side of the yard. Tiny tomatoes are still producing, which is getting a little irritating because they are so difficult to harvest. Thoughts are turning to next season. Where to plant the garlic? I think it's going in the top bed that was just relocated, upper left in the pic. above.  When taking apart the beds to relocate them out of the shade, I realized that they had been heavily infiltrated by roots as well. This explains why the garlic didn't work last year. Another idea that came to me: The area in the picture above gets absolutely baked in the mid-summer sun. I'm mixing some vermiculite into the soil to help it to retain moisture next year. We'll see. Things are getting pr