A Place to Enjoy the Garden - Day3

The prospect of finishing was a great motivator, giving the neighbours a reasonable lie in (it was Sunday after all & I like to imagine I'm a considerate soul) I was out to complete the deck area by mid morning.

On the fly I modified my original design for the L shaped raised beds on the top deck, as this was placed directly onto the deck boards I didn't want soil in direct contact with the wood causing rot and seeping out of the cracks so I narrowed them slightly so that I could slot in a couple of troughs I had to hand and filled over the gaps with more decking giving a surface on which to place pots.

Top Raised bed in place.

The raised beds to the left where a somewhat trickier affair - whilst the construction was simple, getting them into place without ruining the plants I had growing up the fence, along with the snug fit I had between the deck & fence resulted in quite a few lesser used & colourful words from the English language punctuating the air. My old friend hindsight was sat on my shoulder throughout whispering in my ear ' this really would have been easier if you'd done it before putting the decking in place!'.

The final change to the design was to drop the idea of the raised beds forming a gateway at the foot of the decking, whilst the design had looked fine on screen, in reality it would have resulted in a postage stamp of a lawn & I do like to have a bit of grass underfoot now & again; instead I splashed out on two short lengths of half log fence to close-off the decking area.

View from the Deck.

The final task was the tidy up,  I used the turf taken up at the start to partially fill the raised beds covering with a layer of old newspaper to supress the weeds before compost was added to fill the remainder and my few token potted plants where strategically placed - my first major construction project was done, I could sit on my deck in the late afternoon sun and consider the next challenge.

The completed Project.

The Decking Goes Down - Day2

At the start of Day 2 I was up early valiantly ignoring the groans of protest that my body was making to continue getting the decking down. The deck plan had upper & lower sections, first to go down was the lower deck, I built a basic framework to support the decking planks and then it was a simple job to lay down each plank, drill pilot holes and screw into place - it struck me when fixing roughly plank 15 into place that you didn't really see much decking in gardens until after cable free electric screwdriver/drills came into popular circulation - I'd hate to build one of these with a normal screwdriver!

Lower Deck in Place.

Next to go down was the upper deck support frame & planks, I was fully into the swing of it by this point, making rapid progress and feeling like a seasoned professional, before I knew it the upper deck was done & it was only mid afternoon.

Upper Deck Complete.

Ignoring the impulse to enjoy a cold beer and marvel at my craftmanship I cracked on with the first raised bed - a containing wall to the lower deck.

Raised Bed 1 of 5 Done.

With the bed in place I could resist the impluse no more, cracking open a beer I sat on my partialy completed project & surveyed my domain - all was looking good & with luck tomorrow would see completion.

Let Construction Begin - Day1

The Easter weekend dawned, the timber was piled high - I'd taken the oportunity to purchase a Compound Mitre Saw & I had thousands of Decking screws - it was time.....

The Beginning...

with a look the other way.

First step was to clear the turf (read: 'some grasss + lot's of weeds in a heavy clay soil) from half of the garden. By day I'm normaly deskbound - I'd thought I was reasonably fit but after several hours of digging I was seriously wondering if the garden wasn't actually that bad and maybe I could live with it after all? It also crossed my mind that here was a new fitness opportunity, if you can have Cross Fit & Military Fitness Class's amongst many others why not 'Dig Fit' - all you'd need would be a muddy patch of land and a few spades, it could be the next big thing, I could be rich - the exertion must have been taking it's toll!

Finally I got to the end and stood back to admire my efforts... Nope - no going back now!

Turf - Gone!

Next step was to lay a heavy duty weed control membrane not helped by the breeze that up until that point had been helping to keep me cool through the unusual bout of physical labour.

Keeping the weeds at bay.

Once the membrane was in position, it was covered with gravel of which I had plenty to choose from and as a bonus stopped the wind from taking it every two minutes, post holes where excavated (by which point I was developing a serious loathing for heavy clay soil) and PostCrete used to set the supports for the decking support frames. If your looking to concrete posts into place I have to recommend PostCrete - it's really simple and quick to use, dig the hole (the hard bit), place in the post - I placed gravel under the post to aid drainage given the heavy soil we have here, pour in the PostCrete then simply add water on top, check the post is straight and support if neccessay - ten minutes later it''s done - why isn't everything that simple?

By this point my muscles felt like lead, and I could feel myself stiffening up, the promise of a cold beer or two followed by a hot bath was to much to resist and looking at my handywork I figured I'd earned it!

Starting from Scratch - Day0

About two years ago the urge grabbed me -the garden was a mess! Overlooked, no plants to speak of bar a few small pot plants here & there, no wildlife, untidy gravel areas and a lawn with a well worn track worked into it by our dog endlessly circling not to mention the abundance of weeds - things had to change but to what?

A Blank Canvas

The picture above shows the garden before I started, frustratingly it appears I didn't take any pictures so a snowscape is the best I have complete with hasty snowman. As you can see it's not a particularly large garden & the backend slopes steeply downwards but it's a reasonable size compared to some of the places I've lived.

First things first - I needed a design, I wanted to be able to enjoy the garden - not too overlooked, encourage wildlife (Crows, Magpies & Seagulls were all I'd seen to date) & have areas for flowers, salad & veg,  fed up with the gravel (I have soft feet in the summer!) I thought decking the way to go surrounded by raised beds; but how much wood to order, how would the decking look? where would plants & flowers go? I have an artistic & technical nature so for me the obvious answer was to find some software to allow me to create and play with models of the garden to be. After much Googling of the web (and numerous diversions as I disappeared down rabbit holes of 'ooh - that link looks interesting...) I found a superb freeware program called 'Sweet Home 3D' that met my needs and especially the price, if you're interested take a look at www.sweethome3d.com; it took me a couple of hours to get to grips with & then I was away - I ended up building a complete model of the house not just the garden!

Initial design courtesy of Sweet Home 3D

After much fiddling and experimentation I finally decided on the design above, Note - Sweet Home 3D is capable of much better rendering and there are some truly fantastic examples on their website however this worked for me and allowed me to calculate exactly how much timber & decking I was going to need. Next step was to source the timber as cheaply as I could, as luck would have it B&Q announced a sale with decking boards at just over £4 each, with help from a local 'man with a van' the timber was purchased and delivered to the garden just in time for the long Easter Weekend - next step: let construction begin!

Visiting the Garden

Just saying hello...

Sat quietly in the garden today and I spotted a little visitor, not sure who was more surprised - me or the mouse, bold as brass he proceeded to run around the raised beds hoovering up dropped seeds from the bird feeder above. Last year I built decking across the garden (another tale to be told at a later date), this combined with our neighbours decking probably provides a fantastic environment, secure from predators & sheltered from the elements I have visions of a mousetropolis below my feet - something to keep an eye on, whilst I don't mind them outside & enjoy watching their antics I don't really want them moving in come winter.

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