Landscaping a new garden area

I was going to call this little post Playing in the Dirt. Because that was really what I was up to today.

One trowel, one kneeling pad and a mad gleam in my eye. I don’t even know why I was down at the stables. I had planned on finishing shifting all the branches that I will use to make a permaculture bed up at the top potager.

I had shifted three car loads of the stuff and found the job, frankly, dull. (Unless you count my little helper wanting to climb onto my lap while I was crouching, lobbing the thick branches uphill.)

I know there is one more stash of branches too thick to push through the chipper – so ripe for recycling as the first base of a permaculture bed. It is at the far end of the building.

But I saw all that lovely rich dirt and just couldn’t resist.

Especially as the hard frost had gone and I could actually shift the soil. It went first into a dozen buckets and then I spied another fun project – the rocks on the side.

I can’t even lift the buckets right now. I want to take them up to the soft fruit orchard which might as well be on the moon it is so far away. And uphill. Again.

Oh for a pair of strong wheelbarrow wielders.

So I thought I’d just collect the little pebbles that litter this entire area.  And then I thought, maybe I’ll shift the slightly bigger rocks.

And the afternoon went in a swirl.

I even have an idea of what to do. (Most people think these things through beforehand. Alas, not me.)

I don’t want to remove all the soil close to that huge rock wall. I don’t know how safe the construction is. And there are some monster boulders still lurking under here.  (That annoying garbage bin is full of weeds and water from the spring above. I can’t shift it until I’m very brave. Or wearing a wetsuit.)

So I think I will create one bed on one level, about a metre and a half wide close to the wall, and then flatten the rest to have a landscaped area which I might lay to lawn.

And build a wall in between.

It got too dark for me to show you the first part of the wall I have fashioned. I just levered the huge rocks into place. I’m not strong enough right now to risk actually carrying those annoying huge ones on the side.  But I’d love to.

If you are passing and you are strong, don’t hesitate to come by. I could do with a hand.