I dig landscaping

A rainy day keeps me indoors, offering a chance to do some much-needed housework and to catch up on the blog. Hmm. Which shall I do first? Three guesses.

Well, ladies (I say, suspecting this blog has no gentlemen admirers), it’s been a busy couple of weeks.

When last we met, I was digging a hole. Ya gotta love the diversity of Gabriola soil. It can grow pebbles, stones, rocks and boulders. Thus, as previously noted, when you say “digging a hole”, what you actually mean is excavating rocks and boulders.

These are the rocks from Day One. I quickly realised they need to be spread further around the garden.

Not only will this give you an idea of quite how many (although not all of the) rocks have been excavated. It’s also an amusing example of how unfamiliar I am with the video feature on my digital camera.

Then there was the question of what to do with all the sand surrounding the rocks and boulders. It will never support life, but it has to go somewhere. I know, I thought, I’ll shift it over to the front of the garden in an attempt to level it off a bit.

Stella is incredibly helpful. She quickly grasps the problem. No sooner have I dumped the first couple of wheelbarrows of crap soil to the other side of the garden, than she craps in it to start fertilising it for me.

Eventually I figure out the futility of what I’m attempting. By adding a row of bricks, I can actually create a tiered effect. And heaven knows I have a lot of surplus bricks.

I know I said no stinking boulder would defeat me.

But I have met my Waterloo (and I’m not Wellington). This hole is now as large as it’s going to get. The landscape fabric will simply have to be wrapped around this monster before the topsoil is added.

By this point I am on a digging/excavating frenzy. I need more space for bee-friendly plants. Where else can I start digging?

I don’t know how clear it is from this 2010 photo, but the rear section of the garden (like most of the bloody garden) is sloped. What I need is a large, even bed.

And look what I accomplish in just one day! The photo may not do it justice, but I now have a de-rocked and turned-over bed running most of the way along the rear section of the garden!

The next morning, Stella, by now so used to spending our days together in the garden, shoots down the path ahead of me and gets there first.

At some point I am actually going to have to buy things to put in the new bed and the big hole, but I just can’t stop digging/excavating. I’ve decided I want another fruit tree and the big hole doesn’t get enough light.

I start digging behind the ceanothus, quickly finding my way blocked by the roots of the giant cedar chopped down many, many years ago. Unlike rocks and (for the most part) boulders, there is nothing I can do about huge bloody roots. Start digging nearby. About six inches down I realise I’ve found another large boulder (although not in the Waterloo league). Spend most of the morning digging down and around it.

I finally get to the point that I can roll it around a bit, but I simply cannot lift it out of the hole.

Stella checks out the boulder, but has no practical suggestions to make.

I am not going to be defeated by this fucking boulder. I go into the house and ring my Phase Four neighbours Cec and Joyce Ashley.

Both these fine people were in Inherit the Wind. More importantly at the moment, Cec (back row, far left) is a carpenter and builder who may, somewhere in his well-endowed home workshop, have something to help me get this fucking boulder out of this bloody hole.

Cec arrives 15 minutes later with a pick axe and a shovel, neither of which are required.

Before I can say “Be careful!”, he simply lifts the boulder out of the hole. Blimey.

After this strongman feat, he and I sit down on the bench and chat for a while. At some point I admit that I had been planning to contact him anyway for another garden-related favour. Now that I’ve created a reasonably level bit of garden, I’d really like to put another raised bed in so I can transfer the strawberries which are overtaking the big raised bed. In my haphazard fashion, all I’m envisioning is four planks, which I figure Cec could screw together in 10 minutes.

“I could build you a raised bed,” Cec says. “No problem.” My hero.

The next morning he arrives with, not four planks, but actual proper raised bed materials.

An hour later I have a strawberry bed. Fuck me. Oh so easy when you know what you’re doing. (Before starting on the strawberry bed, Cec inspects the existing bed and pronounces himself well satisfied with Glenn’s levelling job.)

While he’s building the bed he tells me that you can get a yard of high quality top soil from Wheelbarrow for $88. Sounds impressive. I ask him how much that is. Eighty-eight dollars, he repeats. Suddenly we’re in Abbot and Costello territory. No, I clarify, what volume. Oh, says Cec, eight feet by five feet by two feet – and that will fit his trailer. He offers to take me down there to pick a load up next week. Well, that would be a lot cheaper than buying hundreds of bags at $6 per bag. I accept this very kind offer.

When he is leaving, I thank him profusely. “Any time,” he says. I laugh and tell him he’d better not say that or I might just take him up on it. As I said on Facebook yesterday, Cec Ashley totally rocks. (Or should that be boulders?)

Oh, look. It’s stopped raining and the sun’s come out. So much for the housework.