You are currently browsing the daily archive for May 3, 2011.
With the new season well and truly underway, and a recent spate of Bank Holidays, it was time to dust off the list of garden projects. You know the ones that you’re always meaning to get round to, never quite the right time to start etc. Well with a burst of energy I got the first of the 2011 Two Chances Projects completed:
Garden Project #1
To clear the old bathroom suites (3 in total) from the side of the garage and dig out the old compost heap (suspected rubbish dump from previous occupants) and generally make good the area.
Tools required – 6-yard skip, wheelbarrow, shovel.
Costs – £258 for the skip and £25 for the weed control membrane.
Estimated time – a decent days work.
Before:
And after removing 3 toilets, sinks and radiators, 1 bath, 1 shower cubicle some carpet and piping that was my rubbish I started to dig into the so-called compost heap. There was compost, although riddled with bineweed it was unusable, and also many lengths of metal drainpipe, roof tiles, bricks, rubble and a car engine!
This was the state of play at tea-break time (possibly my 4th or 5th cup!). I then laid the membrane and shovelled excess gravel over from the driveway to tidy things up a bit.
Not bad if I do say so myself. I sub-contracted out sanding and staining the garden furniture to Rach and she did a pretty good job of it.
And then it was on to the next project. Down in one corner of the front garden was what some ‘trendy’ gardeners would call a ‘dead hedge’ or ‘wildlife area’ but what I’d call a pile of old hedge cuttings I couldn’t be bothered to clear properly the first time round. So buoyed by my newfound enthusiasm I decided to tackle it. Now while this wasn’t a ‘wildlife area’ I suspected it was an ideal site for something to be quietly going about its business so I took extra care and wasn’t disappointed when I found some slow worms.
I managed to carefully move them to the sanctuary of the nearby beech hedge and carried on clearing the area.
I’m hoping to fit in a 6′ square raised bed in this space, screen off the wheelie bins somehow, and build a couple of proper permanent compost bins. Keen readers will remember when I foolishly posted about the Quick Cook Composting Method some 18 months before the project is likely to come to fruition. A warning if you’re writing about projects, make sure you’ve finished them, or are substantially down the road to completion, before you write about it!
Have you got any projects planned for this year?
