Preparing the vegetable beds…now this is unfortunately a necessary evil in order to give nice plants, but I’m sure my garden has got it in for me with this particular task. I decided we needed to clear out the back bed to get it ready for planting. It hadn’t really been used at all this year, so it was in pretty bad condition; lots of weeds and the dry conditions had made the soil really terrible.
I actually did all of this by hand, with a trowel for the majority which might seem a bit strange but with my broken finger I can’t really use a fork/spade or use that hand to pick out stones. So it’s a bit of an awkward task but a necessary one.
I spent most of this afternoon out there and managed to work pretty well on a small section of the bed. I’ve increased the depth of loose soil by about 4 inches and removed a whole heap of roots which had crept in from the plants which neighbour the bed, the tree there is particularly good at getting it’s roots into the bed.
Not only is the soil pretty solid, but in parts it can be quite clay-like, and there are SO many stones in the soil!! I only worked on a section about 1 foot wide and I managed to fill a reasonable-sized plant pot with rocks and stones! It is also really not back friendly! I was out there for the afternoon and I could hardly stand up each time I took a break… Think this task might have to be interspersed with stretches and hot baths.
