Garden again, Summer 2013

When I arrived at the house in June 2013, the nicely strimmed elder plantation had re-grown ( as I knew it would ) a few months before this lot wasn't there.

At least this time the giant 20mm wide wood stems had re grown as 10mm green stems, so not so difficult to strim....Obviously I have weakened it a bit, it hadn't grown back as close together, much less of it!

Elder is back....

I gave in and used weed killer weed killer made from vinegar I left it 3 weeks till it died, then  chopped it down.... an hour with the brush cutter and it was gone.

I think it will keep coming back , but it seems weaker every time, I might get someone to plough the garden and pull its roots out.

I pruned the plum trees as it was summer and best to do it then, I never prune plums,Cherry's,peaches etc in the winter to prevent disease

I prune the growth from the floor to give a trunk and open up the centres for the birds to get in and eat the insects.

They don't seem to touch the fruit other than the figs, I tend to rake the soil underneath as well so they get anything living in the ground, after doing this the grub infested fruit trees are almost all fruit perfect with no insecticide.

Then I started on painting the trunks white with lime....

It seems to work, the ants don't seem to climb as much over the lime, snails don't go over , caterpillars stop and turn round.....lime painted trunks do seem to stop many of the insects!

All the trees now have some lime on them, I started running out and couldn't be bothered driving to get any more so started doing bands on the trees, some trees in Kazanlak near the Kaufland have dots on them instead of continuous bands.....I presume for fun...

When pruning, I decided to try and make it a bit safer for myself and the dogs when I bring them over, the seed grown cherry plum trees need some work, I have lots of these trees, all covered in thorns....not just any thorns but BIG thorns...

I cleared the stem to about 3 foot upwards of all branches to give a trunk and then took to removing all the thorns on the outside of the trees to about 4 foot along with any that stick outwards higher up, I left some internal ones to protect the fruit from climbing animals..

The fig tree seems to be healthy with lots of fruit, we were getting a half plastic bag a day of figs when we got up early enough to defeat the birds.

Plenty of new growth, grown close to the Balkan mountains with no protection other than the wall , the tree is about 6 foot higher than the wall at least and shows no frost damage.

Last year I hacked a rose bush down, this is now growing on the new growth, not sure what it is.....

I chopped it off just in case it spread!

The trumpet vine is growing well, looks much better now as I have painted the gate black, the orange against the black is great.

I'm taking a cherry picker over to give access to the roof of the house and factories if needed, but its also going to be great for getting the cherries....this sour cherry has lots of fruit as do the walnut trees next to it, but its a bit tall to get to any of it.

  

Not long now!

Well....its been another long gap between posts!

It has taken some time, but my broken arm seems fine now....only 5 months to get better ( note to self get it in plaster next time and it might heal quicker ) even though its still hurts a bit here and there....its fine now

Its given me much more time to sort things out

Late last month I did a test run to Germany, I had to attend a trade fair at Nurnburg, the Spielwarenmesse to display my glue there, after driving that far my arm was sore...but bearable , the snow was ok, 10 day there and most days no snow fell, I was going to go on to Bulgaria after the fair but looking at the weather in Austria, Romania etc I decided it looked a bit cold for now so returned to the UK.

The ferry is booked for early next month for the move over to Bulgaria , after another 3 smaller trade shows, it feels a bit strange that my UK company is staying here without me...in the UK and I am moving to the newer one in Bulgaria...I will be making visits to the UK instead of visiting Bulgaria, the idea is work should become more interesting again.....

Not long now till the move and I cant wait!

Weather in the UK.......its just so bad!, the whole place is flooding, last week our factory in Runcorn flooded about one quarter due to the drains belching water out,

Nobody seems to realise the whole country has had it, the amount of water has destroyed the crops this year, food prices obviously will rise....a loaf of brand name bread in the shops is about £1.50 already, what will it be after price rises...that's if there is any bread!

Bread in Bulgaria, I get it almost anywhere and its great, easier than making it, but I do like making it as its different, even at a supermarket like  Kaufland at about 0.50 Lev , that's around £0.20 , and it tastes better than the nasty plastic rubbish in the UK

I just cant wait to get back there, about a month to go!

Why i bought a house in rural Bulgaria.

Welcome to my blog about my renovation of this traditional style Bulgarian village house, this photo is the one that made me buy it, taken by the seller some years ago

When people find out I have property in Bulgaria the question usually is.... Why and how I decided to buy a house in Bulgaria

So here we go....why i bought in Bulgaria!

Around 15 years ago I started to believe the UK was not the place for me, so I started looking around to see what was available in places that were fairly easy to get to.

I wanted somewhere rural, some places were suggested by estate agents, Scotland looked nice, North Wales another very nice place, while viewing some properties near Llanwrst I ran into a man in the estate agents selling his house , he was moving to Bulgaria..... I looked at the photos of some houses he was looking at, instantly I liked what I was looking at, nothing else had been so close to what I wanted!

Time went by...my business was growing and I decided a move like that was too difficult and at that point the factory could not be moved so the idea was forgotten about.

2005 

In 2005 my dog was diagnosed as having CDRM, he was virtually paralysed from the middle back, over a period of a month his fur fell out and he started falling over, soon he was unable to walk at all, a trip to the vets said he had a few months left they could find nothing wrong, i would not have that as a diagnosis and started searching the net, loads of info was available about diets, and supplements to diets , we decided on a treatment regime and very soon he was able to walk again, I started thinking how much better he would be if he had a large garden to play in instead of going out to parks for long walks, his legs could conk out at any time and it wasnt easy to carry 25kg of muddy dog back from the park. 

With taking so much time off work I had managed to sort out someone to run things for me so i  didn't need to do so much work, meaning i had more spare time in between looking after the dog, One day browsing ebay i found houses for sale, and then Bulgarian houses.

Some years went by.......I had to travel for the business , most times my dog would travel with me but occasionally i left my dog with family ( with a complete instruction manual...)  but most times he traveled with us as he needed constant care, we started to travel Europe a lot , about 10 days a month were in Europe, mainly Germany, Czech Republic and France , I decided more business was over there than in the UK so we could move to somewhere warm, with a larger garden .

2010...how it all happened!

I was having a bad day, the car was broken into in the night , my dog was getting ill again , so I decided I would move , I logged onto ebay and put some bids on a house, I lost the auction.... Suddenly it was easier to buy one as it could have already happened, I looked at the companies website and found lots more properties, so a few emails later I had arranged to buy a small factory, and a house.....Near Vidin , why Vidin....its close to the crossing meaning i had less distance to drive.

   A few days later I popped over by plane ( the only time uptil now i have travelled to Bulgaria by plane ) , I paid the deposit and arranged an agent and a solicitor to sort it all out, luckily i was not ripped off...as I had no clue as to what i was doing, I had a translator but they worked with the solicitor....

   I only went back another few times in 2010 to sign things and pay the rest of the money, My view of this transaction now is I was very lucky not to be ripped off, The factory is great ( and will be covered in another blog for the company ), needed some work but is still fine now, the house i have stayed in a few times, its quite nice and does not need much work as for Bulgarian property it is quite new being made in the early 1990s.

In June 2010 my dog died at 14 years old, he had been on wheels to help him walk for 2 years, this had a strange effect on me , overnight I cared little about the business , I couldn't have cared less if it had closed down at that point, luckily i had someone step in to run it.  

I decided to get over to Bulgaria full time I wanted to get away from the UK.....Having not completely lost my mind....but once realising I no longer needed or wanted to work , (I decided I would need food!) ,so I needed a much larger garden....something the Vidin house didn't have so the search started for a better house for growing food!

2011...Another ebay purchase

Back in the UK for most of the time, I made another random purchase, I bought a traditional style mud brick house near Maglizh ,StaraZagora in a village / small town in the rose valley called Vetren , this house i liked a lot, there was a video of around the garden and in the house, the seller looked trustworthy...( OK,  many sellers do look trustworthy.... ) but i checked there history and they had been round some time on forums and lots of people knew them, so i decided as it was only very cheap (due to being a village house in the center of rural Bulgaria) i had nothing to loose.

The house on ebay had a buy it now....so i bought it! paid the deposit,  completed the sale within a few months and then it was mine just before Christmas