Category: Siteworks

It has been a slow job but we finally got all the vegetable beds setup at Jackdaw Ridge.

Using recycled railway sleepers – these solid pine sleepers have great character and are well weathered.  We’d looked for oak sleepers but they were elusive and after waiting for weeks we finally opted for the pine. The sleepers were sourced from Europe and delivered by Roskam Farm Enterprises near Tuamgraney.  Jan Roskam was very good to deal with and I’d recommend him.  They are fairly hefty 2.6m x 0.25m x 0.15m and took a fair bit of manhandling to cut, set and fix them in place.

We’ve got spuds, tomatoes, strawberries, courgette, squash, salad leaves and rhubarb underway and a few more beds to plant over the summer .. looking forward to a few fresh veggies in the months to come.

Our herb bed was getting almost nightly disturbances .. thought it was a local cat leaving us nasty messages but it looks like the culprit is a harmless, slug-eating, friendly hedgehog.

Once the patio was completed I was able to finally install the small patio light.

The grass bank and edge was reshaped, seeded with grass and finished.  Within a few weeks the grass was sprouting and the lawn was taking shape.

Once the footpaths were completed we had our excellent blocklayer back to build the retaining walls around the entranceway.  A few weeks later we had then rendered with the same external finish as the main Aquapanel walls.

The area was filled with coarse gravel and topped with the same black chip used around the rest of the house perimeter.  The radon vent pipe was left just above the top of the gravel – but later a vent cap was fitted to the top of the pipe which allowed it to be put just under the top of the gravel and hidden.

Thanks to our friends who provided some wonderful herbs and plants for our house-warming and they’ve found a home at Jackdaw Ridge in the front bed.

We’ve now got some rosemary & thyme, sorrell, sage, mint, chives, angelica & lovage to flavour our dishes.

Before the winter sets in I managed to get out into the garden and plant 3 apple trees.  We have a cooking apple ‘Bramley‘ and two eating apples ‘Beauty of Bath‘ and “Katy/Katja‘ planted on the south east corner of the garden.

Looking forward to an apple or two in 2014 and years of jams, pies, chutneys and WASPS at Jackdaw Ridge.

And they all lived ‘apple-y’ ever after!!

With the autumn upon us … it is time to set the lawn and finish around the exterior of the house.  The front patio will wait until next year but in the meantime we need to get the grass and gravel set down.

The lawn was sprayed with weedkiller in mid-August and, with a nice spell of dry weather last week, it has done the job of killing most of the weeds.  A local landscaping professional Paul Gleeson and his crew have spent a couple of days working on the lawn and it is now largely complete.

After removing all the large boulders, rotavating the lawn it took a couple of passes with a grader/rake to get a level finish into which the seed can be sown.  A good dose of rain in the coming days will get it started and hopefully we will have a nice, rich, lush lawn by the time spring 2014 comes around.

The strip between the house and footpath has also been filled in with a local stone chip which will permit drainage but keep the weeds at bay (fingers crossed).

The scaffolding is now being installed on site.  Should be ready just-in-time for the arrival of Kingspan on Thursday 11th next.

After a few weeks where not much happened at the site, we are now back in action and the next few weeks promise lots of changes as the frame of the house takes shape.

We went with Assured Access Scaffolding from Ennis for the supply of our …. scaffolding.  Nigel of AAS has been a pleasure to deal with and very good in getting onsite and erecting the scaffolding in time for our frame installation next week.