Ditch Levelling
Well the last part of the weekend in August that we spent transforming the drive, and to some degree the garden, was spent levelling in the ditch. It is not clear from the pics, but there was a drop of over two feet from the level of the garden, and it is in this space that we plan to put our fruit cage, vegetable plot and chicken run. So this has all been on hold until we could level this off.
However, based on Liam’s measurements and calculations we needed over 100 tons of top soil to achieve this!! Fortunately we were able to pick some up cheap and this was delivered over a few days by Lambert’s. We also wanted to remove a load of earth that had been left on the top paddock, so we decided to put that at the bottom of the old ditch before we covered it with a good covering of top soil.
I seem to recall making between 5 and 10 trips backwards and forwards from the top paddock, so that added another 30-50 tons of soil used.
At times I thought we had massively over-estimated the amount of soil needed, but the ditch just swallowed 10 ton dumper loads without even looking like we had added anything! It was clear we were going to need every last ton!
Finally the soil was tracked in (running the track machine backwards and forward) to remove any air pockets, and then it was graded level using the digger bucket.
The result? A smooth level area on which we can start the next stages of our plan. It was a long, hot and noisy weekend back in August, and sitting here looking out at the darkness outside it seems like a long time ago, but we have already started work on the area which will be covered in subsequent posts.
Ditch Levelling 2
Tags: Chicken run, Ditches, Fruit cage, Garden Design and Improvements, GSD Lambert and Sons, Lambert Civil Engineering, Liam Lambert, Vegetable plot
Categories: Fruit, Garden Improvements, Kitchen Garden, Living the Country Life, Posts with Photos, Vegetables