Swords to Ploughshares III

Garden- latest! During the current emergency I've taken a brief pause from modelling to transform the back garden into a big vegetable patch.

I conscripted all the Bat-lings this weekend, for a Big Push, and it's all starting to come together. Above are the first proper plantings- some broad beans that will hopefully grow up the tripods. Last year our crop amounted to 8 beans- this year I hope to grow kilos of them 

Below is the new main planting area, which looks like a swimming pool filled with mud. We've dug a lot of compost into it and taken a lot of stones out, and planted the first French beans in the corner. Later we will landscape around it.

Above are improvised planters with early crop potatoes in them. The cardboard boxes are what the magnetic sheets arrive here in- they are very substantial, but it remains to be seen whether or not they will survive the spring showers. Nothing much lost, if they don't.

Below is the small planter- we have onions, spring onions, spinach, peas and beetroot in there.

And finally, here is the new raised bed, pretty much as before except I took out the great big bush by the steps and its roots last week, and a couple of sacks of stones, and Harry and I dug the earth over, again. This will be where we will grow most of the root vegetables- it's too shady for much else. Later, I plan to put a water butt in the corner.

So that's where we are; this evening we sat out with a round of gin and tonics and surveyed our domain, with considerable satisfaction. I've already done more gardening than I do in most full years and it's been a comfort, in difficult times. It's going to rain tomorrow, though, and I hope to get back to the modelling! Take care, all.

Swords to ploughshares II

Here's the second in what will be a very occasional series of posts on the garden work that I'm doing when I really should be basing minis.  ;-)  The plan is to grow tons of vegetables that we can eat or give way in the summer/autumn/winter of Covid.

Above is the new small terrain feature (=vegetable patch). This is shady, so it'll only suit root vegetables. We took tons of rock, stones and roots out of this.  That bush got chopped, this afternoon.

And above is the new two-box terrain feature; a massive 16' x 8' potato bed, on the site of a long-defunct play area formerly covered in gravel. The soil here is really cloggy, since there's lots of clay mixed in and poor drainage table, so it qualifies as rough ground. This was an absolute back-breaker; we found a stone path buried 6" under the surface, that we had to remove. I bought a cheap rotavator from Aldi, that worked wonders on breaking up the clumps of soil.

And last (and least) a trough that we built last year, when Covid was but a glint in the Grim Reaper's eye. Although small, this proved fertile ground for green beans and lettuces. 

So the hardest part of the work is done and I hope to get back to writing, next week, interspersed with a little digging and planting. And some modelling. Huzzah! 

In other news, if you play TtS!, there's a new version of Even Stronger! out, you can download it from here:

https://bigredbatshop.co.uk/products/to-the-strongest-even-stronger-updated-24-3-2017?_pos=2&_sid=ae1a73b99&_ss=r

Swords to ploughshares I

I've been working on a new terrain feature for BigRedBat Mansions (above). The feature is designed to fit a 300cm grid, and the 180cm mini is included for size comparison purposes, only.

It sits in a formerly unused portion of the garden that was formerly a dump for unwanted paving stones.

On Wednesday I had an excellent chippy build a wooden retaining wall, so two sides are now fortified, with impassible terrain on a third.

Flippancy aside, this is going to be one of a number of a number of garden projects that I plan to fit in alongside the wargaming, this year. In response to Covid, I intend to turn a good portion of the garden over to vegetables, with the intention of feeding the family and, hopefully, generating a useful surplus that we can give away, locally, since food is likely to be at something of a premium later this year. We are all going to be spending more time at home, and I can testify (after digging just a single square metre of the new area) that gardening is excellent exercise! March/April is also a great time of year to be planting stuff out. Feel free to join me "Digging for Victory over Covid!" Stay tuned for more posts over the coming weeks...