![\"new](\"http:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/IMG_3175.jpg\")
<\/p>\nSlightly hard day. So I had to stop at a garden centre and buy an expensive, mature wisteria to cheer myself up. I will build a pergola for it to be trained across, in an arch across the steps down from the drive to the garden.<\/p>\n
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But of course buying it meant I had to plant it. And the place I had in mind was quite a wet spot, which Swami Google said was not a good idea. So I decided to put it at the top of the steps, which is, of course, backfilled centuries since with large rocks and other crap. So there was a lot of difficult digging to be done.<\/p>\n
![\"Jorge](\"http:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/IMG_3171.jpg\")
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Jorge (a volunteer from Spain, recently arrived) and I struggled down through the strata. Stone after stone after stone came out, along with bits of broken pottery and just generally sandy soil. But I found a fair number of worms as well, so perhaps that bodes well.<\/p>\n
![\"grace](\"http:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/IMG_3172.jpg\")
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Having made a very deep and wide hole, we backfilled it with good soil mixed with compost from the lovely, lovely humanure compost pile that’s been maturing for a year or so. It’s good stuff, full of happy worms.<\/p>\n
![\"the](\"http:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/IMG_3169.jpg\")
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I’m certainly sold on this composting toilet thing. It was easy, not too unpleasant and the result is about the best compost I could imagine.<\/p>\n
And in other news…<\/p>\n
![\"very](\"http:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/IMG_3168.jpg\")
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We finished putting the (horribly unpleasant) insulation in the roof of the new sleeping hut, and put the ceiling up (not pictured) (yet).<\/p>\n
![\"Jorge](\"http:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/IMG_3166.jpg\")
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And started constructing the bed frames, just in time for me to win two ebay auctions for king size foam mattresses which I can cut in half to make decent size single beds. I hope to have all this finished by next weekend when a bunch of volunteer turn up.<\/p>\n
![\"marigolds\"](\"http:\/\/donatedhouse.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/IMG_3174.jpg\")
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And while we were digging around in the compost, we did a bit more planting of annuals in pots. Tomorrow my engineer is coming by with his wife and a couple of friends who are interested in the straw-bale-ness of my little cabin, so I want the place to look at least not neglected… a tall order some weeks. I am a slob.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Slightly hard day. So I had to stop at a garden centre and buy an expensive, mature wisteria to cheer myself up. I will build a pergola for it to be trained across, in an arch across the steps down … Continue reading