The Charcoal Challenge (Part 1)

Part 1 has now been merged with part 2 to form the official entry into The Charcoal Challenge competition.

You can read the merged post here.

Apologies for any inconvenience.

The Frugaldom Microholding is Coming to Life!

Summer Sun in Springtime

We're labouring flat out to get as much of the garden converted into a working microholding as possible, before we actually move into the house. As long as the sun shines and the rain stays away, we concentrate most of our energies outdoors.

Yesterday, 29th April, was day 15 of our '50 Day Challenge'. That's how much time we have to pull the project together and make the house habitable. That means it's only 5 weeks until we start moving into the cottage!

It's one of our current next door neighbours who will be renting this house after we leave (start of June), so they asked if they could purchase the multifuel stove we had installed, along with the greenhouse and garden shed. After much to-ing and fro-ing, this was finally agreed, just in the nick of time, I might add, as H had already started dismantling around the greenhouse. This, however, has meant that we are left with the problem of no garden storage at the new place, so hard cash has had to be spent!

As luck would have it, there was a Royal Wedding this weekend - congratulations to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, aka, Prince William and Kate Middleton. Anyhow, everywhere had sales on in celebration of the great event. Some were 'Wedding Weekend Specials', others were extended 'Easter Sales' and yet others were 'May Day Holiday Weekend' specials. I'm not sure which I opted for, but we bought a half price garden shed, so we need somewhere to build it. That somewhere, is here, between the main garden and the orchard.

In the new garden, there are piles of discarded rubbish everywhere. As There have been several sets of matress springs amongst the debris, but also no fewer than 10 sturdy panels, each measuring at least 4' x 4'. So, I raked, dug, shovelled and raked some more to clear and level a space much bigger than needed and then we carefully laid the panels. (I suspect they've formed some sort of sectional animal shelter in the past.) By yesterday afternoon, we had this base all ready to receive the new shed, complete with enough extra space to sit some pots around it

On the opposite side of the garden, there's the huge patch of unruly rhubarb, so I tackled some of that. I'm trading it through our local LETS group, so it will all be used and appreciated; it will also help towards costs of hiring a trailer from fellow members.

Not sure how much rhubarb I picked, but I couldn't carry it all. Having sat an old fish crate next to the patch, (we've collected about a dozen from the garden, chicken hut and outbuilding) I simply kept pulling up stalks until the crate was filled. I then bundled it all up to the back door to top and tail it, ready for distributing. I reckon 2 Crees per kilo sounds a fair price, as there's plenty more where that lot came from, plus there's still a big patch of it growing here that's in need of picking. Rhubarb, anyone? Ideal for frugal wine making if you like a bit of fizz, or stewed in pies, tarts and crumbles.

On Thursday evening, I saw someone out in the street strimming the grass verges opposite a couple of the other cottages. I went out for a chat (everyone knows everyone else about here) and explained that we'd just bought the cottage and it would be unfair if ours looked scruffy next to the others. He totally agreed, commenting how bad it would look if the Royal bridal party had to pass along the street! 

The £5 charge seemed like an absolute bargain, although it's sheer luxury for a frugalite like me! We don't own a petrol strimmer, so I invited said gentleman to view the back garden. (Please note - this was not some random stranger).

He appeared back yesterday afternoon, strimmer in hand, and set about the back garden, strimming all down through the new orchard. What a huge difference it makes! We can now see the basic lay-out of what will soon become our main concern - the great outdoors, within the confines of our very own walls.

This photo was taken from the end of the soon-to-be patio, which seems to keep creeping further from the back door. Our future patio will end up being 15m x 5m, as opposed to the original plan to restrict it to the first 5m x 5m. It will be surrounded by patio planters, pots and trellis climbers, then divided from the main garden by a pergola-type structure, along which, I hope to grow the vines. All of the strawberries are along a south facing wall, so these are getting the best of the sunshine. They'll also be handy for nipping out the back door to pick for dessert during summer. There are 10 wooden planters and 3 troughs filled with them, so I'm hopig for a decent crop this year. We tend to eat them as they are picked, so I've never managed to get as far as making strawberry jam.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch... H was working in 'poultry corner', digging, clearing and mending the chicken hut.

It'll take a bit of time, as we can't move the sheets of wood until we next borrow a trailer, but the shed now has a new door and some new interior lining.

The wire in the windows will be replaced with 1/2" weldmesh.

The entire shed measures 12' x 8', so it's a solid lump of a building, especially as it seems to have been reinforced in the past. It's built within a wired enclosure measuring about 30' x 30', so plenty of space for the poultry. The bonus feature that H discovered is the concrete slatted floor! Ideal, by anyone's standards.

Today is day 16 of our 50 day challenge and the sun is shining. I wonder what we'll achieve today?

Join us in the Frugaldom Forum to follow progress and to set up your own mini-challenges. These are 'Challenging Times', so why not make them fun?



The Great Clear Up Begins

Burst pipes, dodgy wiring, leaky roof, we've got the lot.

With views like these, we don't really mind how bad the place looks for the foreseeable future. When it gets too damp and dusty indoors, we can simply go outdoors and sit watching and listening to the surrounding countryside.

There are several doves fluttering about, settling now and again in the old pear tree near the bottom of the garden. It certainly attracts plenty of smaller birds and we can hear the pheasants right down at the bottom of the garden on the other side of the stream.

Out on the hills, which we can see from the kitchen window, cows graze peacefully. The cottage sits in the only street that runs through a quiet village. I still haven't seen or heard any children, other than a few visiting at the weekend. I have, however, heard a neighbour's cockerel crowing, so the chickens certainly shouldn't be a problem once we move them over to their new home.

We've been blessed with good weather for the past five days. This should, hopefully, help to dry the house out a bit, as it means we can leave the front and back doors lying wide open to air the place.

While son and his pal made a start on clearing rubbish from the outbuilding, we began strippig more wallpaper, ceiling tiles and carpets out of the house but the lure of the sunshine became too great. I ended up outside making a start on what will become our patio. There's a good 10m of concrete outside the back door and it's completely sheltered by the outbuilding on one side and a dry stone wall on the other - ideal patio for barbecues and as an extra dining area in summer.

Having cleared away all of the rubbish, rubble and weeds from the first part, I was able to start setting out some planters. I even got one filled up and have sown some fast growing salad leaves. According to the pack, these 'speedy veg' could be ready for starting to harvest in as little as four weeks, so we should have something for the sandwiches by the time we get moved into the house.

A walk down the garden soon found me carting glass panels for across the top of the wooden planter, turning it into a mini-coldframe. There are plenty of panes of glass, that's for sure. In fact, there are probably enough of them lying about the place to build a greenhouse! For now, I'll use them to protect the seeds as they are sown.

That was yesterday's work, so today, I filled up the car with more planters and the first of the strawberries and fruit bushes. I also took over some of the willow, the honeysuckle, my (kept well pruned) Russian vine and a big tub of lupins.

The friend who was with me today had a good rummage along the edge of the garden walls to see what could be found growing. I'd already found the big patch of rhubarb - a definite bonus - and friend identified the unknown fruit tree as a plum tree.

Along the way, she found a minature rose, some buddleia, mock orange, honesty and a bamboo, which she reckons can be nurtured back to health. There are also the usual brambles, which will soon be cultivated into something more manageable than the trip-me-up traps they currently represent.

The black looking boards we found, seen here behind the rhubarb patch, are what we have saved to make into garden benches. These will be ideal, once propped up on logs, as we should be able to drill them in to secure them. I still haven't a clue what they once were, but solid plastic, as well as being very heavy, is also waterproof and very durable.

This afternoon, I discovered that we'll be about £120 per year better off, as the new house is only a council tax band B, whereas we are currently paying for a band C. Having the septic tank also means not having any waste water or sewage charges, but we don't have them here, either. This difference will almost cabcel out the extra buildings insurance we now need to pay.

Next best news, after the news of actually getting the house, is that, even after we factor in the additional travel costs for being 20 miles from nearest town, our regular out-goings should drop by almost £100 per week! Now that's what I call a frugaler's dream!

Tomorrow's trip, weather permitting, I hope to move over more of the strawberry planters. Wuth luck, these should all fit in the back of the car (and weigh us down nicely for making the trip).

I must remember to bake tomorrow's loaf tonight, so we have our customary sandwiches, as the power company is doing major repairs in our area, meaning everywhere is affected throughout tomorrow from 8am. And I have remembered that we're now working between two houses, so the washing went out on the line here first thing this morning.

Just for good measure, I have stashed all my flower and veg seeds into a bag to take to the cottage tomorrow. Many of the packs say April within their planting time frames, so I'm risking sowing some as soon as I can before this month is out. Must remember to take the garden fork with me, as I need to find a patch for digging so I can get some potatoes planted!

Having immense fun, despite the fact that we're using nearly a gallon of petrol each day we go over there. It still feels a bit like being on a wild camping holiday when we're sitting out the back on the soon-to-be patio having our picnic and having to walk down to the stream to collect buckets of water to compensate for the lack of cistern on the toilet indoors!

Don't forget you can join us in the Frugaldom Forums.