Pest control

We got an invasion of bees the other day to our conservatory. We have no intention of becoming bee keepers and I decided to do something to prevent the bees getting in. I have no idea if the bees wanted to make nest into our conservatory or if they just collected nest material from there or what was their motivation and I don't mind a single bee flying around in there but there were tens in some point and that was bit taunting.

Most of the bees flew in and out from the opening near the ceiling of the conservatory (those places pointed out on the third picture of this post). From those openings also some wasps fly in during summer and the mosquitoes later in the summer and also some birds have flown in from there once in a while and not to mention the biggest pest the squirrel also finds it's way in from those openings.

I invested in stiff mosquito net, I have seen metal ones too but this plastic one is easier to handle. I cut out strips from the net and attached those with a stapler. I like that the net is white, it does not jump out from the white roof beams. The shorter pieces right next to the ceiling are not attached to the ceiling in any way. Because the net is stiff I'm hoping the upper edge does not need any fixing, it is just stretched between the roof laths. In theory a squirrel could be strong enough to break through the net if it's really motivated to get in.

Now I think the only problem is that if some pest does get in (like from the open door) it now does not have many places to get out from. I hope that does not turn out to be a huge problem.

Beautiful fall

It's been a nice few days. I've tried to spend as much time outdoors as possible. Some cleaning at the terrace, washing the windows from outside, raking and picture taking. And nothing really to blog about.

Blog lights

These or similar lights I have seen in many Finnish blogs, almost too many and I've understood that they have got the lights through their blog somehow. I'm bit annoyed that I've seen the lights in so many places but I fell for them anyhow. Because those are lovely.

Not sure where those bloggers have got their lamps but I bought them from Granit. Only two years ago I bought new lanterns for the terrace, I still like the lanterns, but I do not like to go outside and light them, it's such a cold and annoying thing to do. So even though real candle light is nice, electric light works way better for me.

I added a few hooks to the terrace and hung the lights on those. But what I did not realize when I bought the lights is that ten 25W lamps are together really super bright. 250 W to a conservatory is just too much, we don't have that much light even indoors anywhere. Here is how bright they were.

That was just over the top. Not really what I had been envisioning, so I had to get a dimmer and the lights are also on a timer, that is handy.

Do you get a feeling that you are in a circus or in a funfair when you see the lights? I do, I love it.

On friday I will show yet another thing I've bought.

Potato growing bags, part two

I'm really super duper late with this post. This really isn't the right time anymore to start growing potato. Remember the potato growing bags that looked like trash cans? I made them because I got white plastic from work. Before I had received the plastic I had thought of making potato growing bags from tarpaulin, but changed my plans because of the free plastic, which then turned out to be an ugly idea.

After making three ugly trash can bags I decided to go with my original idea. My original idea was inspired by these hideously priced Bacsac growing bags or these bit more modestly priced Zigg Zagg ones. The Bacsacs do look nice at least the colourful ones, but Hello! I won't buy them at that price. The Zigg Zagg ones I could had bought but the colours are all wrong.

I wanted my potato bags to be white and so I bought a white tarpaulin with less that ten euro. Then sewed bags from that. I made two sizes, one with diameter and hight of about 40 cm and other with 30 cm. For both I cut a square, folded that in half and sewed the long egde together. Then turned the top over the bottom half, so that the seam was now left inside the two surfaces. After that I tucked in the sides of the tube and sewed the bottom close.

Then I sewed on a handle, so the bag is easier to move if needed. For the bigger one I sewed the handle to go all the way through the bottom, because I want it to support the bottom a bit. But I admit that it was quite difficult to sew, so on the smaller one I just sewed two handles on the sides. Since I made only two bags from the tarpaulin so I'm still left with a HUGE pile of it.

So I did not put potato into the bags, instead in the smaller one I planted some fall flowers and the bigger one I'm using to store some clothes of the kid. Next summer I can use the bags as I originally intended. The bag is not maybe the prettiest one for flowers. The point in using bags as containers is that those can be collapsed later when container gardening season is finished.

Please ignore the fact that I put way too little soil into the bag and the plants are now too deep to look their best.

One thing I would like to mention. Do not use cotton thread if you plan to grow something in this type of bag, it will compost, it's better to use polyester thread, that should last longer. 

Carpet washing

I have written a post about this before, but I thought I'd repeat it, since I know this is so exotic to those outside of Finland.

Most cities in Finland have free places where people can wash their carpets. Those have metallic tubs with a wooden counter. Cold water comes from hoses and the used water runs to the citys sewer system. There is also huge amount of wooden racks where the carpets can be left to drip dry.

This time I went to the rug washing place together with A. The living room carpets is so heavy when wet, I could have never handled it alone. We also washed the rag rugs from the conservatory, finally. There were lots of people at the washing place, and I did not want to bother them by taking that many photos, but check my old post about rug washing, it's from the exact same place.

Terrace cradle

It is common in Finland to have children take their naps outdoors. It is considered healthy even in below zero temperatures. Lots of people use the prams for this purpose, some even have two sets of prams because of this. They have usually bought a very cheap prams and use those on their balcony or terrace. We could have done the same, but I had a bit different idea.

I wanted to make a cradle from a basket and hung that on the roof beams in our conservatory. From a flea market I found an oldish shingle laundry basket, it was in ok shape, one handle was missing and the corners were bit broken but it still felt sturdy. I got some straps, I wanted to buy white straps but for some reason I was unable to find any, so I bought black ones.

I removed the odd handle from the basket and made a cover for the inside of the basket. I used black sheet fabric just because the straps I had bought were black too. We had visited Ikea earlier where we had bought a baby mattress. I removed the mattress from the cover and cut it to the size of the basket. I also resew the cover of the mattress to the new size. Next I attached the straps. I placed two straps to go under the basket. Then I placed two straps going around the basket, one on the bottom and one on top. The places where the straps overlap I sewed on the wrong side of the horizontal straps pieces of the same strap, so it makes a groove for the vertical strap to go through. This way the straps stay on place way better.

I did a bit of load testing with weights, I placed in the cradle some weights and lifted the whole thing up from the straps. It felt really rigid, I had also thought of adding a plywood piece between the basket and the straps, but this particular basket does not seem to need any extra stiffening pieces.

I had two concerns. One was that if a weight or a force as illustrated on the picture would happen to come to the side of the basket would the straps slide on the roof beam and cause the basket to flip. The other was that also the basket could slide relative to the straps, the straps might stay on place but still the force may cause the basket to flip. Also both situations could happen simultaneously.

To avoid those scenarios I needed to fix both the straps going over the roof beam to each other and the straps to the basket. But I did not want to use any permanent fixing.

For the fixing on the top I bought two buckles, I did want to get metallic ones, but I was unable to find any in the right size and settled for plastic ones. Those were black anyway so they blend in with the black straps.

For the fixing point on the basket side, I actully did not do as in the drawing above but made a few stiches on the point where the horizontal and vertical straps cross each other.

Love the cradle basket, I would like to crawl into it myself. It really pleases my eye, the old basket and the industrial straps go really well together I think. Hope the kid likes rocking.

This basket cradle neither is my own idea, I have seen this type of basket cradle in some interior design magazine years ago. I have no idea which magazine it was and how long ago was it that I saw it. I don't have the image saved anywhere, but some ideas just stick to my head even though I have no use for them at the time.

Just realized I could link this to the Op-Shop Show-Off because the basket was from thrift store.

Conservatory vegetables 2013

Like last year I have planted some tomatoes in the conservatory. This time I bought the tomato seedlings, I did not even try to grow my own this year, well I actually did buy the seeds but then postponed the whole sowing for so long that I knew it had gotten too late. I bought two varieties, three tall regular ones and two bush ones.

I used the same rope support system on my tomatoes as last year. It worked very well last year so why wouldn't it work now too. I also bought one water melon plant, which I hope will also climb up on the rope. In the red bucket is a potato. That I planted before any plans about making my own potato growing bags. 

Also on the table with the bush tomatoes we have some cucumber seedlings and A has his own project... strawberries. All the seedlings will move to raised bed outside once they get just a bit bigger.

Conservatory reorganizing

The layout of the conservatory used to be like it was on the picture above. That picture was taken after the fall clean. It was an ok layout and we had had that for quite some time. But it made the conservatory seem really long and narrow and when I tried to get something from the back or take something there it seemed like I had more obstacles on my way than I would have liked to have. Also I wanted to have more room in front of the sliding glass doors so I would have more space for my tomatoes this year. So I did a bit of a switcheroo in the conservatory. 

I changed the angle of the shelf and moved the wooden sofa to the back wall. I think already that change made the conservatory seem bigger and wider. While I was moving stuff I cleaned everything. I took all the cardening tools from the wooden sofa where they are held and cleaned the inside of the sofa. I wiped all the shelves and the stuff on the shelf. I also vacuumed the floor. 

I also flipped the chest table around to give more space in front of the glass doors. I will go wash the carpets later, so I haven't put them back yet. I like that there is now big open space in the front and a bit shady space in the back where to lay and read books. It might not seem so from the pictures but it's now lot more easy to access the shelf. Before I had to cram myself behind the chairs and the wooden sofa, but now there is a bigger pathway to the shelf. And now I can also place the boxes and things on the sofa for a short while since it's right there. Previously I had to turn around to work between the sofa and the shelf. So far I'm really happy about this new layout.

Apple tree trimming

We have two apple trees, one of them makes big sour apples and when it does make them it makes quite a lot of them. The other apple tree makes tiny sweet apples and only a very few yearly. The other apple tree has never been cut I think and I heard that cutting it radically might make it produce lot more apples.

So I thought I'd give it a shot. I also did cut some branches off from the sour one but from the sweet one I reduced more or less half of the branches. According to my mom apple trees should be cut when "snow is bad", which it is definitely now, I might have been even a bit late with the cutting.

I did not have any power tools to cut the branches and some of the branches were quite big so the sawing was hard work. Also the cutting angle was sometimes very difficult and had to take short breaks while standing in the tree. My arm felt really powerless when I was finished. But I got the trees trimmed.

Also what was annoying was that because the snow was bad I sometimes sunk half a meter into the snow. Also my A-ladder was not very stable on top of the snow. I chopped the branches into smaller pieces and collected them to the terrace.

Our row house has a spring cleaning session each year around early May and to that they order a rubbish skip where everyone can dump their big gardening waste. I will take these branches to that skip, but that is one month away and for now I will have a hare feeding station on the terrace. One dude has already found it's way to the feeding station. Here it is cought red-handed.

Squirrel in a glass house, episode 3

Hey you! Check my new movie Squirrel in a Glass House, Episode Three!

Okey, it wasn't that funny, but sequals never seem to reach the same level as the previous ones. 

See episode one from here and episode two from here.

Snow and lights

It is snowing as a I write this post. Snow is the ultimate reminder that it is now winter. And since it's winter it is appropriate to put up some decorational lights and light the candles.

I've usually hung a string of lights to the livingroom, but since there is already the himmeli, glowing orbs and other winter decorations I thought of adding some ambiance to the office. I was planning to hang the string of lights better, but I placed it on top of the floating shelves while I was pondering how to attach it to the wall, but then I kind of liked the lights just randomly placed there on top of the shelves. So I left it as it was.

I must mention that I have spent a lot of time in the office after the renovation there was finished. I love the office. I'm really pleased with it, I'm really happy I can do my crafts there. Also the livingroom is easier keep neat when my craft stuff is not on the dining table but in the office. So redoing the office was a huge success.