Clearing 23B Continues

OK so it looks like the 3 year old strimmer that I have never used is knackered, the choke will not stay where it's put and the tubing and the pipework has perished and all it has done is sit in the shed since I was bought it as a birthday present. I'm guessing it's likely to cost more to repair it than buying a new one and so far I have done without one so do I really need to invest in another?

So strimming being out to the equitation, I looked at the plot and wondered where to carry on working from. I need to get the top end sorted and the sunken area where the wheelie bins are need building up so that I can get paving slabs laid and a shed purchased and erected.

There is an awful lot of stones and hardcore in the first few beds that will assist in building up the sunken area and means I not taking hardcore down the dump. So the top end was my target for today.

Lots of couch grass in the soil and large lumps of hard core, a metal post, decorative pots and a crater that had been lined with carpet and then back filled with stones, rocks and concrete, what the bleeping hell did the previous guy do this for. Apparently the guy who had it before the committee tried to use it as a community  plot was known for digging craters and nobody knew why?

So by the end of the morning I had dug, de weeded and removed hardcore and carpet an area approx. 2.4 x 3.0m which is a bed and the path around two edges.

View up the plot

 



View up the allotment with beds and paths shown

The plan is to next work the path between the front of the plot and the one dug at the rear of the plot in front of the plastic sheeting and install a weed membrane path and when the woodchip arrives lay the centre path.  Then I will work the area I have covered in the blue tarp as the weather allows working on a bed at a time. Currently it taking around 4 - 5 hours a bed and two paths. So that's about 64 - 80 hours of work or 16 weekends until the all the beds will have been dug.

Umm why did I do the maths?! 
 

Home for Sunday dinner and then I started painting the fences on the other side of the garden.