About two months ago I pestered Paul about letting me have a space in the garden for a proper veggie patch because I was sick of growing plants in chicken crates. He gave me a patch out the back of the house which was 1m wide by 8m long. It had already been a garden bed before, bordered with treated pine edging and had two scraggly pine trees struggling to survive in it.
With the help of a crowbar and shovel, I removed the two trees from existence. Glad no one misses them... They burnt pretty well when they had dried out!
Now I started to dig enthusiastically, only to find under the 10-15cm layer of dirt there was rock hard clay! Joy. Out comes the crowbar... After a day of back breaking work-mainly on my behalf, there was now a good 15cm extra depth to the first 2 metres of the patch and pile of dirt and rocks big enough to bury a small city in! Only 6 more metres of that to go...but it can wait...
I had rescued the old compost bin from its old placement and dug up all the contents that had been in there. It was bone dry but soaked up water pretty quickly. I had a wheelbarrow of this compost and 2 bags of horse manure, which I mixed in with some the soil I dug out. I removed any large rocks or hard clay lumps, and ended up with a pretty nice, somewhat lumpy pile of dirt back in the area I dug out. Spot proceeded to come up and fossick in the newly enriched soil and ate a few lumps of horse manure. Typical dog.
Now I started to dig enthusiastically, only to find under the 10-15cm layer of dirt there was rock hard clay! Joy. Out comes the crowbar... After a day of back breaking work-mainly on my behalf, there was now a good 15cm extra depth to the first 2 metres of the patch and pile of dirt and rocks big enough to bury a small city in! Only 6 more metres of that to go...but it can wait...
My aim was to dig each section out at a time and just keep extending the bed as I grew the plants to fill it. That didn't last long at all...
The bed sat neglected for about 3 weeks...
Meanwhile, I'd picked up 6 freebie sleepers to replace the horrible treated pine. They sat around for two weeks before I oiled them and knocked out the old pine border this long weekend. The backyard was looking even messier at this stage, with the big pile of broken pine border strewn everywhere.
The bed sat neglected for about 3 weeks...
Meanwhile, I'd picked up 6 freebie sleepers to replace the horrible treated pine. They sat around for two weeks before I oiled them and knocked out the old pine border this long weekend. The backyard was looking even messier at this stage, with the big pile of broken pine border strewn everywhere.
Now it was time to bring in the sleepers, which were oiled the day before and lay them out in place. One of the sleepers was cut in half to make two end borders. They also extended the garden bed width from 1m to 1.25m, but we also decided to shorten the bed from 8m to 6m, to give room for the new gate going up one end and to get the clothes line out of the garden at the other end.
While I was fine tuning the measurements and digging in the far end half sleeper, Paul was sharpening up more pins for me to hold the sleepers in place with. He decided to bring the grinder out and do them nearby, so I could grab the pins as I needed them. And he didn't do it in the safest manner either-the grinder was sitting up on a upturned milk crate! Luckily no major injuries ensued, just a few grazed knuckles. The grinding wheel was slightly too soft to grind the steel pins down properly, so the grinding wheel was ground down too-to the point it cant be used now...
I had managed to get the end half sleeper and first whole sleeper in line and pinned in place [with a bit of muscle power from Paul]. So far it looked good!!
While Paul pinned the rest of the long sleepers in place, I got the fun job of hacking through more rock hard clay to place the other end half sleeper in. It wasn't too bad...except for the point where we discovered I was digging too far over. That was easily rectified by handing Paul the shovel and getting him to fix my mistake! The crowbar was very handy for getting the hard clay out so it was done in no time.
While Paul pinned down the last few pins, I went along and started backfilling the dirt against the sleepers where I could. The back filling stopped the slight wobble of the end sleepers and held the rest nicely against the pins.
Now the veggie bed is near complete, all the needs to be done now is for the rest of the clay to be removed and replaced with decent soil. But that can wait another day...
While I was fine tuning the measurements and digging in the far end half sleeper, Paul was sharpening up more pins for me to hold the sleepers in place with. He decided to bring the grinder out and do them nearby, so I could grab the pins as I needed them. And he didn't do it in the safest manner either-the grinder was sitting up on a upturned milk crate! Luckily no major injuries ensued, just a few grazed knuckles. The grinding wheel was slightly too soft to grind the steel pins down properly, so the grinding wheel was ground down too-to the point it cant be used now...
I had managed to get the end half sleeper and first whole sleeper in line and pinned in place [with a bit of muscle power from Paul]. So far it looked good!!
While Paul pinned the rest of the long sleepers in place, I got the fun job of hacking through more rock hard clay to place the other end half sleeper in. It wasn't too bad...except for the point where we discovered I was digging too far over. That was easily rectified by handing Paul the shovel and getting him to fix my mistake! The crowbar was very handy for getting the hard clay out so it was done in no time.
While Paul pinned down the last few pins, I went along and started backfilling the dirt against the sleepers where I could. The back filling stopped the slight wobble of the end sleepers and held the rest nicely against the pins.
Now the veggie bed is near complete, all the needs to be done now is for the rest of the clay to be removed and replaced with decent soil. But that can wait another day...
The dogs liked the look of the new veggie patch...oh dear, it looks like I may need to train them to keep out of it!! Or maybe build a small fence to stop them getting in there and burying bones amongst my zucchinis...
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