Gardening, again

Apart from the watering system, and investing large sums of money in plants, soil improver and the services of Jason the gardener, I haven't really had much to do with the progress in the garden.  But progress there has been, and the once tiny plants are mostly bursting forth all over the place.  The most spectacular of all is the raspberry patch we inherited from the previous owners, which is just astonishing.  We are now in the middle of the fruit season, and it creates at least a pint or two of large, perfect, beautiful tasty raspberries every day - yesterday we processed a haul of 2.3 kg of them into coulis, and still ate a huge pile for supper.  We've had the neighbours in to pick them, and given them away to people, and they just keep coming.  

Meanwhile, with the help of the local sparrows and their specially adapted beaks, my bird feeder has propagated a splendid crop of grass where the excess seeds fall into the flower bed underneath it.  Alas, this wasn't in the planting plan, and the lovely Jackie disapproves.  So the bird feeder must now be moved to a socket in the middle of the lawn, and the modified fence upon which its intricate latch machinery is mounted must return to its previous state.  That didn't last long, did it? Still, it was only a prototype.  It does mean buying a suitable piece of square tube though.  Oh well.

Also only a prototype, the automated irrigation system has been such a resounding success that it has outgrown the capacity of the recycled water system's pump to supply everything at once, so I am now obliged to modify it into zones.  This means having a motorised ball valve out in the garden, to switch the water to either the bed with the new fruit bushes (but not the old raspberries) or the bed on the other side of the lawn.  While we're about it I've splashed out (ha!) on a motorised ball valve to control the on/off state instead of the washing machine valves.  Ball valves provides less restriction to the water flow, and they don't take any power when they're open, so you don't need pauses in the watering to let them cool down.  Alas, the new valves must perforce be purchased - but the washing machine valves can go back into stock.

Of course two valves instead of one means we need a multi-channel USB relay board, which means a new box under the counter top too.

So essentially, all the interesting bits of these two projects are about to be replaced.  As I said, they were only prototypes...

Meanwhile, at the other end of the garden, the raspberries still need frequent watering.  If only it would rain occasionally, the nearby water butt might be of some help, but it's always empty these days, so it seems a bit silly to use that in an automation project.  I may have to extend the plumbing of the rainwater recovery system through the back of the garage and use that...  So there's a use for the single channel USB relay board, right there.

Then there is the issue of the pots.  The terrace is positively littered with pots containing flowers, which also have to be watered.  So that's another possible automated system.  The problem there is that the layout is liable to change at any time, according to the aesthetics of the moment, as sensed by the lovely Jackie.  Which makes laying out the little hoses a bit more difficult than it is for a flower bed.  Maybe leave that one alone for a while.

littered with pots...

...but no hoses

Meanwhile, the garden seat you see in the picture above (and closer-up below) has become a project once again.

It used to be a bench, but the wooden bits rotted away so to avoid throwing it away completely, I replaced the wooden bits with shorter wooden bits made of left-over decking, and made it into a single seat.  The enormous weight of this chair has turned out to be quite an an asset when you want to tie something down.  Like the garden umbrella, for example.  Or possibly a dirigible of some kind.  Anyway, now, it seems, we need a bench again, to go on the newly-paved corner you can see behind it in the picture above.  No problem, I've got all the wooden slats of the old spare room bed (no longer required since it was built specially for the old house and is now too small) which will do quite nicely.  Although they will have to be painted - grrr.  Incidentally, if the new paved area looks a teensy bit off flat to you, well spotted - and I have new found respect for people who can do better than that with slabs on (left over from the terrace) sand.  I can't!

The poor old trampoline has been somewhat repurposed, too, since I gave up my front flip adventure.  I chopped up all the fencing we removed when the terrace was build and used it to make a sort of den for Layla, by enclosing the trampoline.  The tramp base moves around a fair bit when you jump on it, so the fence has to be quite flexibly mounted - basically it stands on the concrete pads, and there's only only one attachment per panel, and a strap to the next panel.  

I don't know how it will stand up when Leo gets going on there though.  Bits may well fall off.  Anyway, it's only a prototype.

I also made a hinged door using some stainless pipe clips for the pivot and a bit of old bike cable to hold it up.  For some reason I find the separation of axial and radial loads in this arrangement strangely satisfying. 

hinge

It's probably just me though.  

Anyway, it's only a prototype.