Something Nasty in the Woodshed!!

When  you move house, you don't expect to take on other people's rubbish! We arrived at our new home last Autumn to find bags of rubbish in the front garden, the back garden home to an enourmous metal hammock, random plastic pots and old chairs, the garage full of old furniture, bits of wood, a dusty roll of old insulation and to cap it all...the front garden shed and storage areas full of old tins of paint, rusting power tools, boxes of rusting screws, ironmongery and random electric stuff....and that's just for starters!

Needless to say we had so much to do elsewhere in the house  - so sorting out the front garden shed was low on our list of priorities and in any case the winter months too cold for outdoor jobs. However a couple of weekends ago we had a dry sunny day after weeks of rain. Time to find out just what was in the woodshed!

It took most of the day sorting, sifting and cleaning....disposing of old paint is not easy these days, you can take this kind of stuff to a paint recycling centre but most of the pots were too old or not big enough quantities for that and you can't just take it to the dump if the paints are still liquid which most of these were - so we've had to book in an appointment at a specialist waste centre in Warwickshire where a chemist is on hand to identify the materials and officially sign them off!

We did find a few items of interest  amongst the mayhem though....a box of radio valves, a hydrometer, a couple of 'order of the road' badges, an old printing press and some wooden planes....I can feel a car boot sale coming on!

In the meantime, we've repainted the shed and tidied up the shelves so now it's the perfect place for potting up my fledgling plants and veggie seedlings!

Truffle and her friend like it too!

Dog-Proofing the Garden!

Now don't get me wrong...I love my dog but I also love my garden too! However there are times when a conflict of interests between recently planted up flower beds and an over-enthusiastic bouncy Spaniel mean that drastic protection measures have to be taken!

Our dog Truffle's route to the back gate and walks beyond take her through the garden via her own well-trodden path. Unfortunately the route for this is via my yet to be planted up veggie plot and a small border behind the rockery. So ....mmmm what to do?

She's a bright little doggie and since she was a puppy we taught her the 'off' word. We would hold a treat in front of her and when she went to take it we would hold it firm and say 'off'' until she learnt to wait for the 'ok' command that meant she could be rewarded by taking the treat.

So - having build up the side borders in the garden with log roll, she's learnt that these are now 'off' limits and no longer ventures over them but she still treats the veggie patch as a through route. So - I still have some willow sticks and bits of hazel left over from the main fence and I reckon that if I build up a bit around my veg plot and border opposite she will learn that these are now out of bound doggie areas!!!

I've also included some pots and plants as further deterrents around the opposite border and hoping that these will be enough to convince that areas beyond are no-go!

So far so good and the new regime working well...dog looks a bit bemused though!