Phase 1….

A happy new year to all – and welcome to Phase 1 of the Growing Garden project…. (If you are new to the project, click back to our first post to see how we got here.)

So – here we are, on a rather grey day just before Christmas – the full digging team! The task was to dig out the remaining green alkanet, brambles, marigolds and assorted weeds and to dig round that little brick wall thing before Steve, our wonderful ‘foreman’, arrived. We needed to get the bricks out so that we could get a flat surface for the membrane and in due course, the raised beds. On our recce a few months ago Steve had told us to clear in either side of the bricks and they would then be easy to knock out with a sledege hammer. I must admit that I was dubious but….

Anyhow, here is Paula, one foot in a rather unwieldy boot thanks to a log that fell on her toe during a recent Urban Tribe session, dutifully clearing the soil from behind the wall.

While waiting for Steve to arrive I left them digging and headed off to Jewsons, a massive builders merchants just down the hill from Highgate (my idea of heaven – a builders’ merchant on your doostep) to acquire a sledgehammer. Steve had arrived when I got back and suggested I have a go a knocking the bricks out. Some chance! I could scarcely even lift the thing and the brick did not even have the decency to shudder when I hit it.

Steve, on the other hand, swung the hammer as though it was a toy, and bricks shattered around him!

He did at least admit to being hot when, what felt like ten minutes later, he had worked his way right round the wall!

While they were waiting for me to get back with the sledgehammer, they had also dug a small pond in the back left hand corner of the garden which we hope will soon get invaded by newts and frogs. We are going to run water from next door and use some of the left over pieces of stone to create a rough waterfall into the pond as we did in my garden.

The bricks duly destroyed and piled to one side to be used at a later date, we (well, mainly Steve…) did some heavy duty raking to flatten some of the larger humps and then we spread the membrane and pegged it firmly down leaving a bed down either side ready for climbers or fruit bushes. (You can see a rather unhappy redcurrant which has been sitting in a pot for the last 18 months waiting for a permanent home so that he can get dug in and start producing.) The membrane is designed to finally convince those brambles that they will not have a home here and to make a bed for paths between the raised beds.

So, Phase 2 which is planned for a day (or two) later this month, will see:

• The building of small walls to keep the soil in the side beds
• Rubble spread over the membrane to make a flat base for the paths.
• The paths laid.
• A final decision on the size and placement of the raised beds. We are hoping to have a load of scaffolding boards donated which will work really well for the raised beds.
• The pond’s ‘waterfall’ constructed.

Roll on the day!