Wednesday 8 May 2013

Here endeth the grubbing out


I started removing the fringe of rocks, and the excess gardenias in the first week of March, meaning we had been in our new house for four weeks. Darren cut in the curve for the grassy amphitheatre on 24th March, and has worked solidly each weekend since then, seven weeks in total, and probably upwards of 100 hours. Here is the best I can manage as an AFTER & BEFORE show. I wanted to lead with an image of what the veggie patch looks like now, so the After shot is the first of each pairing.


This is where the bulk of the hours were sucked up: mattocking, chiseling, chain-sawing, and shoveling in this little area, known colloquially as 'The Orchard'. The previous owners had repeatedly had trees and shrubs hacked off at ground level, leaving stumps and roots to resucker. Not any more they wont. Quite a few massive female funnel web spiders were encountered, readying to launch an assault. Not any more they wont. Hard to believe they are the same area. On the left of the After photo is the orchard, and on the right of the After photo is the utility area - water and gas meters.


Along this fence line were a series of resuckering stumps, which have all been either removed or chased down to the fenceline and poisoned. What is left now is an area to construct a trellis for climbing things like peas'n'beans. More on this in my next post. I have the first lot of compost ready to go. I have Hamish primed to unload some chook poo on me !!). And we have a discussion to navigate to determine what to layer the walkways with. Darren wants some sort of blue-metal, whereas I am after something softer for little kids' feet, and less dangerous if picked up by the mower. I will look to see what Bunnings offer as alternatives.


Still to come is the rainwater tank.

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