Garden Improvements, Fencing, Gate Making And Bench Restoration

Hey everyone, so I've been so busy with the barn recently that I haven't really done any videos of just doing stuff around the land. You know I do a lot of stuff off camera, I haven't really done any videos of it. About a couple of months ago now, ages ago, Dot and her dad put a load of posts in to fence the garden and it's my job to do all the braces and run the wire and all that. So yeah, in this video we're going to do that, finish fencing the garden. Dot's instructed me we need a gate and also she wants a bench. So in this video we're going to try and get all those jobs done and then I'm also going to go and pick up the waterwheel parts and the brackets for the barn and then next week I'll be back on the barn again. But yeah, we're going to get the garden fenced and make a gate and make a bench. So Dot has been, Dot and her dad have been putting these posts in for the fence. We wanted to fence the garden to keep the geese and chickens out so we can let them out without having the risk of them, you know, just coming and wrecking everything, eating everything. So they've done the posts and now it's my job to do the braces. So these are untreated posts, they're large so they're naturally durable timber but the sapwood isn't durable, the heartwood is. So I've got to take these pockets quite deep otherwise the sapwood will just rot and then these will just pop out so they need to go into the heartwood in the middle, which adds a considerable amount of work. I'll tell you what, I moan when it's raining but when it's hot like this I prefer the rain. Oh look at that, one of these got me. Ah, too hot and I can't think. I just did all that work on that post, realised it has cracked in half. I just made a new one, well annoyed. Hey everyone, so it's the next day. I got all those braces in yesterday so today I've got to run the wire. I've just gone up and got it and rolled it out. It's so hot, it's really difficult work. Today is 26 degrees Celsius and it's 86% humidity, so that's similar to the Amazon rainforest and already just really hot and sticky. Yeah, brutal. So I've got my wire laid out, trouble is we're using just the leftovers from the fencing we did before and so it's in short bits and I've joined them together. So yeah, hopefully get this wire in today. Like I say, it's getting quite a challenge working in this humidity. Right, set up, I'm going to get this fencing pulled up. Right, just go and help it round a little bit. So the fencing's tensioned, just need to go around. But look who I found over here though. I thought you were supposed to be working you two. Yeah, little puss. You got her all pinned down, have you? Oh dear. Look at your grubby knees, you've been toiling. Big tiger, aren't you? Okay, I've just got to go around and get a bit of this slack through. Probably not going to get a lot of it, but a little bit. So this one has just started to pull a little gap under it there now, so that's about a limit of the tension we can put into this. Hear it popping and cracking as the tension evens out as it heats up in the sun. Right, I think that'll do us. So I just need to go and terminate it on the end and then fill in the gate, make a gate. Then I'm under instructions to make a bench for Dot. She says if I do all that, then she'll be happy weeding in the garden. So it saves me doing it. What's going on here then? Are you weeding? You helping with the weeding? You're just showing mummy where they are, are you? Good girl. Hanging out. All right, hey everyone. It's another scorching hot day and today I'm going to make a gate. So I've just been up the top, got some off cuts, bits and pieces and I've got an idea in my head that. That's the post, another long post. Now just doing the marking out the tenons. so it has to be quick. So yeah, you can just watch and edit. Draw pegging them up. This wood sets from moisture and this is green wood. Quick, quick, quick, quick, quick. All right, hey everyone. It is the next day and this is all glued up. I just started making this piece here. This support brace that's going to be routed into here. So I'm going to get that marked out and cut out. So routers in here, through here and then that then sits at the same height as these other rails. That should look quite cool. You'll have to excuse my attire because I've got my little white legs out. I'm wearing socks and crocs and swimming shorts because this heat is just killing me. So I look ridiculous and next time I moan about the wind and the rain and the cold, remind me in the comments that it's just better than this because this is grim. It's like 29 degrees, 80% humidity and it's just brutal. Struggling. So yeah, let's humidity is just ridiculous. Even bad, isn't it? So it's coming along well, despite me dying of heat exhaustion. I'm just putting these little slats in. The only problem is that the ground isn't level where this sits. I was going to make the gate match it but then I didn't think it would open very well. So yeah, I'm gonna have to just level the ground or something. I'll put a flap on one of the ends of it. Right, I'm gonna leave that for today, come back to that tomorrow to get an earlier start on it. I went and collected the waterwheel parts and brackets this morning so I only had a couple of hours on that. So I'll finish that tomorrow and get it hung but this is what it's all about. All this work. Dot's just harvested a load of our tomatoes out of the greenhouse. Yeah, that's what all this works for. That homemade willow basket filled with lovely, delicious, naturally ripened tomatoes. That's what all the work's for. You can't even buy them in the shop like that. Right, it is the next day and I messed up a little bit on the design of this really. As you can see, I should have put more of these rails in then I could have put less of these in which would save me bolts and also I've got this issue now where I've got nothing to really connect two ends to. So I can do like that so for these few that have only got one rail I'm putting a bit of glue on them. Glue and a bolt. But yeah, it's not the most efficient design. I wouldn't copy it. If I was to build it again I'd do it different but I didn't actually draw it out or anything. I just started making it. Why people get really good at things when they do them often because the first time you do something you figure out all of the things and better ways of doing it and better design changes. You know, second one, third one, fourth one is always a better design. It still looks nice and it'll be fine. It's only to keep chickens out. All right, gate's done. I'd say not the most efficient design. I had to put little separate bits in and took a bit extra time but it ain't bad for a day and a half and out of off cuts from the barn build. So unfortunately I'm gonna have to cut this peg off another design floor to get the hinge across there but it's still doing its job. It's just not gonna look as nice. So yeah, put the hinges on and then we'll go and hang it and then that'll be pleased. Then I gotta make her a bench and then I can get back to the barn. So there's the back side. Looks pretty neat, doesn't it? Doesn't look too bad. First time ever making a gate. Well, proper gate anyway. So yeah, let's get the hinges on, go get that hung. A lot of you are probably starting to notice that I'm doing a lot of like really high quality jobs now. You know, when I first came here, first started out, if we needed a little gate or something, I'd knock something together real quick just out of pallet wood and stuff. And a lot of stuff I built in the early days was absolutely, I knew that I'd be rebuilding it, you know, doing it again sometime. And you know, now I've been here a few years, I've got the tools and everything, I know now that everything I make is going to stay. You know, I want it to last, you know, I want stuff I make now to outlive me. So that's why the quality of things I make is continuously going up and up and up. Because a lot of the stuff, you know, the early stuff I made, I'm going to have to remake or something. So from now on, I'm making stuff that, you know, like I say, with the intention of outliving me. And that's the case for this gate. It's the plan, anyway. All right, give this a nice coat of linseed oil. Should have done that before I fit the hinges, but I forgot. Don't mind it. It'll sink in behind there. Got plenty on. I'm going to turn that round, do the other side. It is a little bit cooler today, but it's still very humid. It's still difficult working in it, but it's better than it was yesterday and the last couple of days before. That was ridiculous. I mean, just too much. Just too much. Oh, that is heavy. I can't see what I'm doing there. Can't see the hinge. There we go. It's sitting right. So if that wasn't pivoting on there, that would be all right. Okay, slight lean outwards. Neutral. All right, I don't know how I'm going to get this on there on my own, because I can't really see what I'm doing, unfortunately. But I'll give it a try. You have to sort of guess it from where I am. Nope. Got it. Oh, we're a little bit out. All right, let me sort that out quickly. Okay, it's done. Working great. Just put a latch on that. So the gate is weighted perfectly, so it just slightly opens on its own, but not violently or anything. And it sort of relaxes and stays and holds itself there. So you don't have to prop it open or anything. That's perfect for being in and out with a wheelbarrow or anything. It opens wide enough out that way so that we can get the tractor in. And the latch sits really nice and tight, so it actually pins it against the post perfectly so it won't rattle around in the wind. Yeah, well pleased with that. I think it came out nice. About a day and a half, two days work, and all off cuts and scraps from the barn. I just need to level the ground under it so that we don't have such a big gap. I could have made the gate wonky. I could have made the gate down here, but then when it opened, it wouldn't have opened far enough. So yeah, just have to build up with a bit of stone under here, I think, just so chickens can't get under. But yeah, well pleased with that. Oh, that is bright. So yeah, there we go. Good job done. I've just put some gravel under the gate to level it off a bit and moved a bit of the stone that was here just to smooth out the path. So as you walk up to the gate, you're not walking too steeply uphill. Then you open the gate and it's not too bad. I've got this mound of stone, but I'll slowly over the years get this leveled out a bit better even. Yeah, good job done. While I was filming that, I found a nice little slow worm in the gravel and I didn't have a microphone with me, so I just took a little clip and I'll show you that now. But yeah, it's nice to see them. It's not even a worm, it's not a snake or a worm, it's actually a legless lizard. They're relatively rare, you don't see them that often. But yeah, nice to see. Yeah, tomorrow I'm going to make the bench and then Dot will be happy then. Dot just got back from work and she said it's ridiculous and she loves it. So I'm pleased with that. She was well pleased. So she said, have you filmed it from the back? And I just realised I hadn't, so I thought I'd better go and show you. It does look a bit mad, doesn't it? It'll go grey and blend in a bit It's a bit too fancy. Yeah, show you from the back. Yeah, there it is from the back. Actually kind of looks nicer from the back, to be honest. The garden is looking lovely now. Fenced in, Dot's in the weeding and the grass cutting and we've got our lovely gate. Ah, that's a good feeling. Morning everyone, new day, gate's looking great. So today's plan is to restore a bench. So a while ago, Dot's parents had these lying around. I'm giving them a bit of a hose down, but they've got rusty old bolts in them that all need to come out. Need new slats and a coat of paint. One there, one there. So I'm going to get them sorted out, get a coat of paint on them and make all the slats for it. And then Dot can have a bench Paint's dry and I'm going to start putting these together. Made the slats yesterday, so the table saw I'm running through the router. I don't know if this is going to be a pain to do, starting in the middle or you've got to start from the end or whatever. I'm just going to start trying to get some structure to it, because at the moment I've got it clamped down to the bench and stuff. Right, so I just made some little metal brackets because the original ones that it had, they only had one and it was all bent. So I made new ones. Probably quite gentle with them because I only just put a bit of spray paint on them. Hopefully the screw will pull that in. It's not quite bent right. The other one I did fit perfect. Never mind, it'll go I think. There we go, it went. One more screw. There we go, all done. Now I reckon that ain't a bad job. So I just need to give it a bit of wax. I've got the little brackets on under there. I made brackets. It's nice and rigid. Looks excellent. So yeah, I'm going to put a bit of wax on it and then we'll move it out to the garden. Right, it's all done. I think that came out really well. Didn't cost us anything. Got them free. A few nuts and bolts and a few off cuts. We've got a nice bench, so Dot will be pleased. So I'm going to grab her now and we're going to carry it into the garden. So we just carried the bench up to the top of the garden and Dot's happy. She's got a basket. She's going to pick some tomatoes. Pick some tomatoes and have a sit down on your nice bench because I've just realized that we've been doing loads of work on the barn, on the barn, on the garden. I haven't really shown you the garden. So the greenhouse is looking pretty nice. Last time I showed it, these tomato plants were just tiny little seedlings. Yeah, it's not looking too bad in it now. There you go up to the roof. I've had quite a few of them already. It's a pepper plant. It's a little bit far behind. We should get something off it. We've got aubergines just starting to flower. Getting a bit late. It's been a bit of a challenging year because it was so wet and cold and now it's absolutely roasting hot. And so it's been a bit of a challenging year, but they're coming. Coming along very nicely, I'd say. They're right up to the roof. Dot's done a good job harvesting into your homemade basket. Our melons didn't do that well this year. See, a lot of them just sort of died like that one. We've got one plant with a few on it. It's not that good this year. And cucumbers as well, weren't that great. Yeah, tomatoes are good. So greenhouse overall success. We've had loads of potatoes, loads of garlic. We're just starting to pick the sweet ones now. They're just starting to be ready. They're just starting to sort of pop out. Lots of runner beans. Had lots of them. Swede. Start picking them soon because they're getting to the point where they're ready. We've got some strawberries over here. More swede. They're not doing a lot now. Carrots. They're doing quite well. Had a lot of carrots. Had two patches of them. We've got another patch over there. Pak choi, I think, is coming along. Leeks. Getting there. Leeks are very slow, but they come eventually. I've had a lot of beetroot. We've mostly eaten that now. More carrots. Parsnips. We don't harvest them yet, but they'll be lovely and big when we do. Around Christmas we'll probably start harvesting them. And then down here we've got butternut squash and yeah, squashes in general. The potatoes were planted all along here, so they didn't get too much light and stuff until now, so they're a bit late. But they're coming and they're doing very well. Pretty decent size. Pretty good. Yeah, that's our little garden. A new gate. A new bench. All going well. It's not a bad year, but like I say, weather's been challenging. It's just been cold and wet and then now roasting hot and nothing in between. There's two butterflies there. You can see how camouflaged that one is. Can you even see it? So we decided to put the bench here. I've put it on some little blocks of wood so the feet don't sink in. Yeah, looks great. Eventually I'm going to build a little canopy over it because it gets very hot in this garden because the sun comes right across there and you know sitting there in the sun it's not really viable without a shade. Yeah, looks great. We collected many. What's what? That there is a spider, isn't it? Oh, where is its legs? It's sleeping. No, it seems to be missing legs. I don't know what that is. Yeah, I don't know, do you? You got any tomatoes? Have a look. Not a bad haul. There we go. That's all the garden jobs done. Dot's been asking me to do these for months and I finally got around to it and this is probably the last time I shall ever sit on this bench. It's a two-seater bench, but it will probably be Dot there and the cat there from now on. So yeah, anyway, hope you enjoyed the video and thanks for watching.