July 11th
Finally, the big day of
seeding the lawn. To start with, the sieved soil laid down yesterday had
sun then overnight rain to help break it up a little more. This morning,
after taking the compactor back to the hire shop, I used a piece of
drain pipe to roll the soil out flat, without compacting it too much, so
the seed could settle in to the earth. Once rolled out, I started
scattering grass seed.
Not an easy job on a day with
15mph winds! I had to work fairly close to the ground around the edging
next to the railway ballast and observatory slates. Elsewhere, I was
able to walk around stooped over, to put the seed box about two feet
from the ground. That gave a reasonable spread of seed without the wind
carrying it too far away from the target area. The big box of seed was
just enough to cover the whole area, but we did have an older, already
open box that I can use for any areas that need additional seeding, once
I see it coming through.
Once the whole area was
seeded, I started sieving soil again and lightly spreading a layer of
soil over the seeds, to both hide them from birds and to help keep
moisture around the seed. That took another two and a half bulk bags of
soil. After that, I gave the area a few minutes of watering, to wet it
all down and stop the wind from blowing it all away.
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I was going to give
it another watering tonight, once the sun dropped and the wind calmed
down, but there was a big downpour early evening, so no need! |
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July 13th/14th
I took a day off from digging
on the 12th, but did have a wander around the garden between the showers
to get some "Then and Now" pictures. The first picture below
is a 2021/2023 picture and gives a general view from the end of the
garage, then trailer storage, shed, vegetable planters, observatory,
lawn and railway. It shows how much the area has changed in two and a
half years.
On the 13th, I did some
weeding of the railway embankment area and then pinned down a weed
membrane to block any existing growth. The four tree trunk offcuts were
then placed along the embankment area, to give some additional height.
They can gradually rot away into soil. I then started barrowing soil
from the bags near the lawn and workshop to be piled up to form the
embankment until I ran out of bags.
On the 14th, I spent most of
the day on the drive, bagging more top soil. I've wrecked my elbow and
can barely lift a coffee cup, but got another 13 bulk bags filled with
earth and finally got to the end of the pile. I was finishing off the
last bag as the heavy rain arrived, so quickly finished shovelling and
got the rain cover over it before coming indoors. The weather forecast
doesn't look great for several days, so there's probably going to be a
pause in progress.
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July 17th
I took the weekend off from
digging, but on Monday morning, it was bright with scattered clouds. I'd
noticed some big sun spot groups over the weekend and so made an effort to
catch them. It was only a 40 minute session before the clouds came, but I
got some fairly good results. While the clouds rolled in, it ramained dry,
so I took the opportunity to do some odd jobs on the observatory.
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Most of the time I'm
observing, I close the observatory door as a wind break, but while
setting up or clearing away, it would be useful for the door to stay
open. The prevailing wind had other ideas! A while back, I painted a
hook for the door to keep it open and finally today, I got it fitted.
Another smallish job was to
replace four hinges from the front flap. At the time I built it, I
couldn't get enough brass hinges, so four of the seven were steel or
plated steel. Today, these four hinges were replaced with some solid
brass ones purchased recently.
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July 18th
Yesterday, while working on the observatory, my new lawn was bare soil still.
Checking again tonight and we have grass! In the last 24 hours, it's gone from seeds with no signs of life, to blades of grass at least an inch tall. There's a few areas that look a bit thin where nothing has happened yet, but I'll give it time.
I can re-seed any thin spots later.
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July 22nd~August 4thThere
have been no updates recently, due to being on holiday in Normandy,
France. It's been 18 years since we were last there and re-visited all the
D-Day beaches and museums, among a few other things. Just before we left,
the grass was beginning to take hold and fill out, though there were a few
bald areas where the seed hadn't taken or was washed away by the heavy
rain. I did a little reseeding before we left. We did ok for weather,
while back home it rained lots! This was good for my lawn as my neighbour
didn't have to keep watering it.
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By
the time we got back, we had a very green lawn. It's still a little thin
in places and has a few weeds coming through from stuff that was in the
topsoil, but it's getting there. It's not firm enough to walk on, so I'm
going to leave it alone until the roots spread and it dries out, before
I do any further reseeding of cutting. The multiple bags of topsoil on
the driveway are still awaiting moving to the railway embankment. I'm
waiting for a couple of dry days to get on with that.
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August 7th~11th
On the 7th, it was a full on
Dodge day, moving 16 bulk bags from the drive to the back garden. Two were
dropped near the new lawn, while the rest were stacked up around the
garage, garden wall and workshop until needed. The following day, the two
bags by the lawn were scooped out into the wheel barrow and tipped out
into the embankment next to the railway. The drive was also jet-washed to
remove the remaining traces of the soil pile.
Between the 9th and 11th, I got
another five bags emptied into the embankment, slowly building up the
height and width. I also mowed the main lawn, which due to all the rain in
July, hadn't been mowed in about 4 weeks.
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It
had got really long and took some effort. With the garden bins being
collected wid-week, I also did quite a bit of hedge trimming too.
Over the weekend, we were
messing around with a new canvas dining shelter for our 1940s camping,
so didn't get much else done in the garden.
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