Throughout the glorious sunshine of last week, there was moved approximately 120 tonnes of top soil in, as 4 gardens spaces outside were turned into gardens within the space of 5 days. That may sound like a time trialled achievement, maybe. Not to be forgotten however is the mass amounts of overtime worked in the pre-planning department, pre the arrival of the extreme sunshine, which I should add was programmed only to last for that week.
On a slight-ish side note, as maybe you are aware and as any Irish farmer will tell you, the issue of getting potatoes harvested recently was not that the tuber had not fully developed, more that the fields were far too wet to get into, or out of.
Slightly similar, maybe, the biggest problems I had was getting good topsoil, graded of a good quality, not clodded and dry enough to work. On the other hand, was the factor of actually getting into [some of the] domestic gardens and to give it it’s overhaul without, creating a miniature music festival within the micro venue.
This below and above the state 4 of the gardens were found within the estate in Malahide.
My first task was to take overgrowth down to ground level so I could see where I was going, the gardens outline and potentially what lay beneath. And with weed growth at inches width of stem growth in parts, the strimmer blade was taken to task. Once clear-er, phase 2 saw the introduction of the mini digger.
In part the big problem was with the perennial weeds that had been born into pure sub soil and rubble. They tend to form this [in particular the docks] extremely stubborn mass of a clump that is quite simply a real goat to move, or one that in this case was by far more efficiently done by man and machine.
With the overgrowth, rubble, brutal soil, six giraffes and anything else you may believe possible to find in there removed, the next step was the introduction of the top soil. Good topsoil.
Reflecting slightly, the smart decisions were to organise the right truck with a grabs which meant in two of the gardens the soil was able to be placed over the walls ; the mini digger chosen was that it could fit down the side alleys, very much the smarter alternate than doing so by hand ; and finally paying a little more for a graded soil with [therefore] very little waste to come out of it. Picture if you will evenly spreading bowls of porridge as versus caster sugar.
With regards to the gardens that I could not get machine into, it was quite simply a case of many tins of spinach and a little bit of an upper body work out.
Some may query the grass seed germination, the timing and the timelines; but so long as there are temperatures above 14 celsius, a little water and sunlight then by providing all of the factors horticulturally required for the growth of any plant, in this case grass seed germination, I should be absolutely fine and dandy.
The trouble potentially for those who chose to hold off on this, the seeding, is that you will need the climatic conditions consistent for a period of about two weeks. The question is as we head towards October and as the average mean temperatures drop to approximate 6 celsius and falling, will you achieve that lawn by Christmas.
Next up, the prettier bits and the planting. Best done from September onwards, that assuming you’re into water conservation or quite simply prefer to only to have to admire your garden over the wintering period. And though the pictures here may not be the prettiest I have ever shown, the infrastructure and foundations have been laid well and the transformation begun. Either or, just like this one, all good gardens have to start somewhere. 😉
