Monday, May 19, 2014

A weekend in the garden

I had a whole weekend of gardening! That never happens! (Um…except this weekend). I said no to all invitations and committed to getting started on the edging for the garden. 


My timber arrived early in the morning. It's 4200mm x 100mm x 38mm treated pine. High enough for about 30mm drainage gravel to even out the ground and stop under the house from going muddy.


Bought a new drop saw (my toolbox is expanding!) and spirit level. Spirit levels ranged in price from $12 to $99 (!!) so I got the $12 one. You get what you pay for and I think now I have a $12, 1600mm ruler.



The back part of the house before. Grass is still overgrown because the mower is broken, but you can see how the plan works. The large section under the house will be the deck. Actually, I'm thinking instead of decking it I might pave it with some leftover bricks I have in the backyard and ones Jansen has leftover from building jobs. It won't look as nice, but will do the trick and could just be a temporary measure should I win the lotto later.

The section on the left will be a side garden with steppers to the gas bottles which you might be able to just see closer to the front of the house. This pic was taken mid morning so that side gets semi-shade so either some gardenias or maybe cordylines would work there.


The back after. Doesn't really look like much for 2 days work but today my muscles are telling me it was hard. There's supposed to be an extra garden edge on the right for path, but we're (still) waiting for the earth mover to come in and move all that soil and it will go right over that spot, so we've just left it out for the moment.



The "before" from the side. Last week I poisoned all the weeds so they are slowly dying.


The "after" from the side. Still a long, long, long way to go. But it's a start. That's it for this pay cycle. Next pay…drainage gravel.


Thursday, May 1, 2014

Making a (small) start on the garden


I have absolutely no doubt that this garden will be a (very) long term project. Time and money are against me, but, like the rest of the house, baby steps.

So we started with side garden. Mainly because it's easy, but also because the drop from the slab is about 800mm, legal height apparently, but I think it's a bit dangerous.


The land falls about 200mm across the depth of the block, which is 50 metres. A gradual slope in the scheme of things. The electricity guy will need access to the meter box so I'll retain the back of this and make it flat. Luckily the fall means the back is almost perfectly two sleepers high and the front one sleeper high.


We'll fill this with fragrant plants and put a couple of stepping stones for the electricity man. I was going to put some Round Up on the ground to kill those nasty weeds, but we've had rain the last few days so I might have to wait until the weekend. At least I made a start.


I must have accidentally taken this…but it shows my sleepers well. And my pink gumboots ;-).