Glued, screwed and bolted into place

This week: The home stretch; Glued, screwed and bolted into place; Planting trees in 23; Confucius says.. ; Outdoor tasks;

Spring is here. The first of my daffodils have come into flower this week.

I have an abundance of spring bulbs, however once the daffodils are in flower, you know that the Spring is here.

Last October I planted a border of various bulbs outside the polytunnel.

I have had to be careful when I have been working on the polytunnel, not to tread on the new shoots of the bulbs. I planted them deliberately close to the wall, where little else could be grown.

This week I have been rewarded with the first flowers. Now I need to do some weeding too.

It will be next year, after they have had time to properly naturalise, before the display of spring flowers is really something to write home about!

The home stretch

I had a good discussion with Cvjetko on Monday about the last two steps in my flight of stairs.

The two stringers I fixed last week will have a long wood screw added, through each of them and into the overhead beams.

It’s probably not necessary but is a “belt and braces” approach to the potentially weakest point, the vertical, load bearing joint.

We also decided that as these two steps will be the first or last you tread on, depending upon the direction of travel, they should have a deeper tread.

I had just enough remaining prepared wood to add a seven centimetre extension at the back of each tread.

This means that there will be no horizontal gap between the last winder, the two steps and the upstairs floor.

It will make the “feel” of the steps more comfortable for users.

One extension piece has been completed and the other is currently in the frame clamps for 24 hours while the glued joint sets. This really now is the home stretch.

Glued, screwed and bolted into place

I have also been thinking about the way I will mount the upstairs Newel posts. I decided that the best way will be to use Hanger bolts, through the floor boards.

Once again, I am having to work with an extremely uneven floor.

This part of the upstairs has not had the floor renewed, unlike the other upstairs rooms.

I have the hardwood floor boards to go on top, as the finished floor but I need to level the sub frame first.

I was doing this back in 2017, so have already developed a tool to draw where I need to cut the joists to give a level finished floor on top.

I have used plastic levelling shims to get the first newel post completely vertical.

However first I had to drill the base of the newel post and fix the wood screw thread part of the hangar bolt.

Then making a template, I drilled the floor to take the three bolts. I’m using a Wolfcraft drill frame, supported on shims to make sure the holes are completely vertical.

I have added the handrail brackets before fixing the post in place too.

The final job before lunch on Saturday was to glue the newel post in place, again using plastic shims to get it vertical, before I secured the post with ENOX nuts and washers.

This post and the handrail are the safety features to protect users on the landing and stairs, so it needs to be strongly fixed.

Planting trees in 23

Next week looks like being a wet week, so my planning and work this week has been around the weather.

I have had a number of trees in the nursery area, waiting for the right time to plant them. These are container trees, not bare rooted specimens.

I have some space in the Top Orchard where I removed the diseased olive tree last year and I have been eyeing up some more experimental horticulture.

Last year I mentioned finding an Australian horticulturist who was promoting multiple hole tree planting.

Revisiting both the video and the research, I discovered that the idea of planting multiple trees in a single hole has been challenged as “not scientifically proven”.

There are two deeply entrenched camps.

On one side, fruit growers with limited space champion multiple planting. Whilst on the other side opponents say that there is no proven scientific basis for the idea.

They challenge proponents to do the research and then have it published in a peer reviewed journal.

The Garden Professors suggest that high density planting rarely exceeds 2,698 trees per acre. Planting at the density suggested by Dave Wilson would result in 6,970 trees to an acre.

Reading the various papers and reports, what came cross is that the people who have acres and acres of space, don’t need to worry about planting distances and so pour scorn on the idea.

Groups involved in permaculture and with smallholdings are behind the idea of one hole planting.

So knowing that I have restricted space to work with I am going to try the method to see what happens.

Confucius says…

“When you reach the bottom of your hole, stop digging.“

I dug out the roots of the old olive tree last year and both the hole and a pile of stone filled spoil have remained ever since, slowly gathering a covering of weeds.

I didn’t riddle the soil last summer because it was as dry as straw and using my rotary riddle would have just resulted in a cloud of dust.

Then the rains came and the soil became a clotted mass which would have clogged the riddle. This week, the soil consistency has been just right so I decided to set the riddle up.

But first I used my mini digger to dig out the holes again where the sides had collapsed.

Having a mini digger saves hours of back-breaking work.

It has then taken me a couple of days to run the pile of spoil through the rotary riddle and to move the fine soil tilth around in the wheelbarrow.

I have planted the trees in two groups of three.

The two species I am trying are Pistachio and Pecan.

Both of species are Dioecious, which mean they have male and female flowers on different plants. Both need a male tree nearby for the female trees to produce nuts.

Having dug two big holes I measured and marked where I would put the trees, spaced 90cm apart in a triangle shape.

One of the premises of the multiple planting idea is that by planting close together, the size of trees is naturally restricted both above and below ground.

Left unchecked both Pistachio and Pecan will develop into 30 meter tall trees. This is not something I want, nor a size my orchard could sustain.

By the end of the week I have finished riddling soil and am now left with a pile of stones and weeds.

The trees have been planted and are now waiting for the forecast rain to arrive.

Once again I am diving deeply into experimental horticulture, knowing that it may be five years before I know whether the decisions which I made in 2023 were the right ones.

Outdoor tasks

I have been really tempted this week to work on the stairs, but with blue skies and warm sun, with the potential for five wet days next week, the decision was easy!

Spring in Dol is a lovely time of year. The Rosemary plants are in full bloom at the moment, with their violet flowers and lovely scent.

Insects are waking from their winter hibernation and the honey bees in particular are everywhere to be seen, foraging for nectar.

The felines know that the warmth of summer is not far away and have taken to following me around, rather than curling up somewhere warm inside.

This does lead to some problems though. I have been planting out my strawberry runners in the polytunnel. Then I have added a layer of wood shavings around each plant.

Now I know why Argent keeps coming in smelling of sawdust. Not surprising really, it is between 12º and 27º C inside the polytunnel.

In cold climates, spring bulbs appear in succession, snowdrops, followed by aconites and crocus. Here where winter is just around four weeks long, I have everything in flower at the same time.

The shrubs are bursting into life, with the delicately scented Witch Hazel, Hamamelis x intermedia Pallida, in flower.

Just a short distance away, the Poppy Anemones are in flower.

Whilst all around the winter weeds have been growing. So another job has been pulling them out while they are still small. NCG