Filed under: Tools, gardening | Tags: chicken coop, DIY, Garden, hen house, Tools
Good evening to all you DIY nuts out there. You may have read in some of my previous blog posts here at UK Homes DIY blog that me and my housemates are already the proud owners of 3 lovely chickens which we keep in a home made chicken coup in the back garden. They are absolutely marvelous little things (I love watching them potter around the garden digging up worms and dandelions and the like), but more crucially they have been consistently producing an egg each a day throughout the summer months which proves very handy for breakfasts at weekends. I have got a few emails and people asking me about where I got my chicken coop plans. Well, as always I can recommend reading around the online blogs for key information on how to build a chicken coop yourself. Mine was constructed simply enough from some old pallets that my housemate salvaged from his site at work that we then stripped down into planks for the raw materials. With a few simple tools (saw, hammer, nails, chisel etc) you’ll be surprised how easy it is – just follow the plans in the link above. Good luck with your own DIY hen house and soon you too will be enjoying fresh eggs every day!
Filed under: Home Furnishings, gardening | Tags: Garden, Home Furnishings, indoor rugs, outdoor rugs, rugs
Good afternoon home improvement lovers. Today’s blog post concerns a new discovery of mine which I would like to share with you. Indeed, you too may not be aware of this fact either, but while many of us are very much used to enjoying the warmth and style that a good quality rug can bring to the interior of your home or flat – there are in fact some very similar products that can be bought to be used to adorn the outside of your home. Such items can be a great addition to any outdoor communal area – such as a patio or outdoor dining area – and have been carefully built and woven in special ways so as to be resistant to the weather and elements that you would expect may potentially damage such products when used outside. The colour dyes that are used to make up the beautiful rug designs so unique are also specifically designed as to be resistant to the potential fading effects of the sun’s rays on the rug when left outside during the summer months or in hot climates. All these key features make for an extremely attractive and versatile product – and indeed there are indoor outdoor rugs available which as the name suggests are appropriate for either the interior or exterior of your home and garden areas.
Welcome back gardening lovers. I don’t know if you lot have noticed it recently, but those of you living in the UK who like myself have a passion for gardening will have noticed that the weather has now started to turn a little bit on the cool side over the last few days. With this in mind it is very important to consider how best to extend our growing season. Personally, I have planted my tomatoes a little late this year, and while they have grown exceedingly well up to this point, now the weather has turned and the temperatures are dropping I’m a little concerned that my toms just wont have time to ripen before Autumn (or fall) really kicks in. For this reason, its time to acknowledge the usefulness of green house growing to help try and take advantage of any remaining sun we have and speed up the growing process. Those greenhouse panels can really give your garden a good push and help you get the most out of your tomatoes so take advantage now before its too late!
Filed under: Home Furnishings, gardening | Tags: furniture, Garden, Garden Furniture, teak garden furniture
Hello all! What a wonderful week of weather we have had here in the UK! If you were to believe everything you hear from the forecaster’s nowadays you would think that the sun never shines here, but there is no denying that we have certainly been very lucky over the last few days. With this in mind, my advice to all you UK people is that you should take advantage of it now while you still can by getting out in your back gardens this weekend and enjoying it while it lasts!
Looking out the window now it seems like perfect weather for a BBQ this afternoon so I’ll invite my mates around for a few cold beers and a burger or 10! Thankfully, I have recently invested some of my hard earned cash in some very stylish teak garden furniture for my guests to sit on and enjoy the sun, so I think I may try and relax and forget the stresses of being back at work this week. I have personally found that a good quality garden set (combined with a glass of good wine or beer of course) can be a great way of enjoying the warm summer evenings – and the teak models I have bought recently are proving to be just the ticket. Why not see if you can find a great deal of your own!
Filed under: gardening | Tags: backyard gardening, drainage, Garden, irrigation, plants
Are you looking to find the right solution to help improve the drainage system of your garden?
If the flowers in your back garden are continually suffering from having large amounts of excess ground water blighting your efforts to create the perfect environment for your prized plants, you may be pleasantly surprised to find out that there are in fact several viable options to help eradicate the issue and thereby hopefully get the most out of your garden space.
In my experience in this area, I can generally recommend using drip irrigation systems to tackle the issue and help control ground water flow – as they offer perhaps the most effective method of managing the problem of plant drainage and can be a lot more reasonably priced than you may perhaps initially think. For example, why not try checking out the range of irrigation systems currently available to buy on the web and see if this can solve your plant drainage difficulties. You may also find that many such systems that can be found online are actually very easy to install and use – indeed much less complex than one may think.
I learnt many useful irrigation methods thanks to Agriculture Guide – you can find comprehensive irrigation systems reviews, and also what they are, where they used, how you can construct them easily etc, – for details you have to look Agriculture Guide’s irrigation systems tutorials and reviews. Especially I strongly advise you to look their drip irrigation page too.
So if you are having real problems with getting unwanted standing water away from your plants why not give some serious consideration to installing a drip irrigation system in your garden today ?
* Thanks to you Agriculture Guide, you let me learn about all those irrigation systems that are suitable for my backyard garden.
Filed under: gardening | Tags: Garden, gardening, herbs, paver patio, vegetables
Well I am delighted to say that the UK finally looks set to move swiftly away from the cold and drearyness that we experience during winter year upon year (including some very heavy snow in 2009). Yes ladies and Gentleman, spring has made its first attempts at being sprung and that means its time to get back into the garden and think about my landscaping plans for the forthcoming year. I really do love having a backgarden – not only is it a great supply of fresh fruit, vegetables and herbs courtesy of the simple irrigation system I installed last summer, but it is also for me a great place to sit out on those long summer evenings and relax in the fading sunlight – mind you, if you want to sit out at night at this time of year I suggest you check out a paver patio or you could be getting a rapid burst of hypophermia before you know it! So roll on spring proper and then summer and we can leave the bed memories of being snowed in our homes behind us!
Filed under: gardening | Tags: Garden, gardening, grass, lawn, lawn care, tree and shrub care
UK readers of this home and garden blog will no doubt agree with me when I say that at this time of year, it is far too easy for us to forget about – and even completely neglect our gardens because of the low temperatures and heavy snowfall. However, in my own experience I have always found that a bit of careful tree and shrub care and of course the essential winter lawn care can help yield some fantastic results for when those warm summer months once again finally come around. Even at this time of year, I find that some straightforward weeding and fertilization can maintain the quality of your green grass verges in preparation for those lazy summer nights outside with the BBQ. Drawing on the advice of your local professional landscaping services can be extremely helpful in producing the best results for your gardens, so check what is available online now.
Filed under: gardening | Tags: Garden, pest control, pests, termite control, termites
While it is not a major issue here in the UK, several American readers of my DIY blog have been contacting me recently requesting some further information and advice on addressing the problem of termite control in and around their homes and back gardens. While it is not a problem that I have personally experienced in our cooler climate, I am always willing to oblige in helping out my blog readers in any way I can. Termites and indeed any other infestations such as rats, vermin and other insects are often a rather nasty issue to address but they must be removed from your property as they can often cause a health risk to you and your family. For many people (if you can afford it), I think it it may be more preferable, safer and overall more effective to call in a professional pest control company such as Terminix to kill off the little blighters once and for all. Companies such as this can give you a quick and effective service to remove the termite swarms from you property quickly and efficiently.
Filed under: gardening | Tags: Compost, Garden, gardening, organic gardening
I must admit it has been some time since I last blogged about my efforts to produce some high quality home made Compost in my very own back garden as I have been very busy with a number of other gardening jobs, but this has been ideal in many ways, as compost naturally needs time to rot down and develop. I can however now tell you that a few months of decomposition time has allowed the compost at the bottom of my storage bin to start rotting down nicely. Hopefully, it will be fully ready to use at the start of next year once we are out of the cold season in the UK and I will have a nice bin full of organic compost ready to pass nutrients into my soil and flower beds. If you don’t have time to produce your own compost – remember it can be quickly and easily ordered online, or through your local garden centre.
Filed under: gardening | Tags: flowers, Garden, gardening, organic gardening, organic rose tips, winter
I am sat here writing my latest entry to my DIY blog from the confines of my bedroom as the snow has fallen on the North of the UK today, preventing me from going out into the garden as I had originally planned to do today. I had been reading various online resources on organic gardening over the last few days and soon learned that it is important to get your plants into the warm before its too late if you want to keep them alive over the colder months. I had planned to sort this out during the morning, in the vain hope of getting a few more flowers and vegetables moved from the cold garden into the newly purchased heated propagators before winters frosty bit had a chance to kill off my beautiful organic rose tips and my other precious plants with snow. However, there seems little chance of achieving this now 
