Saving our Soil

15 - 17 October 2019

Having cleared the ground as much as possible, we turned to the area that we want to make into a pond.  The next task was to clear away the old wooden edging boards and shovel up any usable top soil.

 Actually, the first task was to do what Dave calls my 'invisible mending' on this pair of boots, to stop the sole flopping open and tripping me up.

 This is the area for the pond, four beds still remaining.  Dave got hold of the camera, and for once, captured some pics of me at work, clearing the rotten edging strips away.

 

It is so hot and humid - much more so than is usual at this time of year - we were taking turns doing a job, then sitting out in the shade with water and a towel.

 

 One of the beds being stripped of its topsoil.  The ground is still so hard and dry it had to be broken up with a mattock before we could shovel it.

 We decided to place the ready-to-use raised bed frame up in the moringa beds, where there should be no disruption with heavy machinery (fingers crossed), and barrowed up the topsoil to fill it.  Some of the beds are so overgrown with spreading weeds and couch grass that the soil can't be retrieved, but we filled this bed, and then I built another one quickly from decking offcuts and we filled that too.

 We have put the new beds on top of the small berms in the moringa beds, on the grounds that if we try growing some winter veg, we can then remove the beds and spread the soil out on the berms below after harvest.  Dave has christened this the 'Hodge Method'.