A Garden, A House and the Life Between

So our little paddock is about a fifth of an acre so not huge but bigger than anything we’ve ever had or been responsible for before. Upon purchasing it our friends and family said “put some glamping pods on it or establish some animals as a petting zoo” or whatever, with the focus on ‘earn some money out of it’. But we didn’t buy the paddock to make money from it; we bought it so that a) no one could build on it and b) so we had more space around us to help with wildlife etc.

So on that note, 2 weekends ago my husband and I spent 2 days planting 110 laurels at the front of the paddock to rise up against the dry stone wall and above it to provide privacy. And then we planted 59 hedgerow saplings to provide hedgerow as a border to the other half of the paddock, which we don’t own. But also, both laurels and hedgerow have been planted to provide places for birds and other wildlife to visit, nest and take safety. We’re thrilled with what we’ve done as we’ve never really planted much before and now we have this space to develop over the coming years.

Looking back it’s been a year since we first started mowing the paddock and it was full of lumps, bumps, weeds and long dry grass and having just mowed it for the first time this year, it was a pleasure to see how easy it was and how green its becoming. It’s still pretty bumpy but hopefully it will flatten over time and look more like a bowling green.

This is the paddock before its first mow last year, and as you can see its very long and bumpy.

We had to use this flailer to cut through it first before we could mow it. We were pretty sure that a mower wouldn’t get through without breaking it so we researched the best next steps and the answer was to flail it. We hired one locally and away we went. I say we but it was also the weekend of the Fred Whitton Cycling challenge, which is so hard, and my husband was competing but came off his bike on the downhill of Honister Pass, so I had to bring him home. Luckily he wasn’t too badly injured but it did mean I had to flail the paddock on my own. Ouch!!

So what are our plans for the paddock I hear you ask.

Well we need to finish removing a pile of rubble in the lower right corner of the paddock first so we have a completely free space to work with. We’ve already planted tree saplings around the edge of the paddock on 3 sides but we have 45 Rowans, gifted to us by the local council, that we need to plant. So we will build a small wooded area with some of those in the corner where the rubble was, then we’ll cluster some of the others in the corners of the paddock and into some of the middle sections of the field to start to build it up and make it more 3D. Then we’ll start to look at planting flowers and other greenery around the base of the rowans. We also want to put a cabin in the paddock which will become our gym. We currently use our garage as our gym and it’s very cold and mucky so a new cabin built specifically for us to exercise in, will be a great use of the land and beneficial to our health. I’d also like to then build a pathway with wooden arches over it to lead up to the cabin, so lots of ideas in my head but time and money will make it happen, and those two are always the ones we’re waiting on.

We planted laurels and saplings two weekends ago, which was hard work but very satisfying, and we enjoy being outdoors. Here’s some pictures of the saplings and laurels once planted. Can’t wait to share pictures in the future of when they’re more established.

So that was 2 weekends ago and the plan for this weekend, if my poor body is fit enough and the weather is good, will be to get back into our veg garden (details on this nightmare to follow). We tackled the veg garden all last year and it was a job and a half with ground elder growing in every conceivable space. So we need to start again and really try and get ahead of the weeds coming back as the weather gets better and Spring arrives. Wish us luck.

Bye for now.