Double Digging and Back Garden Archaeology

Well, it's not quite double digging, as defined by the BBC. I'm doing serious work on our garden-at-home, (as opposed to the allotment, aka simply "the garden" - it's confusing, I know, but round our way we refer to allotments as gardens; and the garden at home can appear as an afterthought). Anyhow, we moved to this house in February, and I've cleared a skipful of rubbish and am now getting the garden right.

These houses were built in the 30s. We've heard that one family lived here for at least two generations, and you can tell from the state of the topsoil, the foundations of a small greenhouse, and the remains of a potting shed, that it was once well-gardened.

Unfortunately, recent occupants have been skanks, whose approach to the garden was to let the weeds grow and have the fuckers strimmed if anyone complained about the jungle. This has left a thick crust of weeds on top of the excellent soil. Also, somehow, this crust has formed over a very uneven surface: wee hills and deep craters.

Anyhow, to return it to the state of a manageable garden, I sliced off five square yards of crust, dug down a spit and a half, (putting the spoil to one side), put the crust in upside down, sliced off another five yards, and then dug down another spit and half, this time hoying the spoil on top of the inverted crust. And so on.

Bloody hard work. But better than a gym - I'm out in the fresh air. I saw a sparrowhawk chasing sparrows today. I'm about half way through it now. In effect, I'm turning the whole garden topsoil upside down. But when it's done, I'll be able to call the garden "mine".

Comments

  1. AnonymousThu Jun 14, 07:53:00 pm BST

    I shall be checking your site for gardening tips now we have moved into a house with a big old garden. I've done a bit of double digging myself now. Thinking of leaving it fallow for the time being. Thats not a strategy. It's me being lazy!

    I guess you have probably seen this already but thought it seemed in place to post a link here about the allotment holders in Hackney Wick and their beef with the Olympic development -

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6752499.stm

    ReplyDelete

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