Sifting Soil

Whilst I was at the painting of window sills the bodach was at the sifting of the soil... I have very stoney ground, about 30% of it is probably stones... Not huge stones, but certainly bigger than gravel... Not the best for growing anything, so the newly created and weeded boarders had to be sifted. Some might say, why bother, or why not just go and buy a big pile of top soil and swap it... Well apart from the fact that you need to part with money to buy top soil, you have to remove the stoney stuff to make room for the new stuff anyway, so why pay to do the same amount of back breaking work?...

The bodach got a bit of a production line going for his various soil particles. The wheel barrow for the sifted soil, a bucket for the stones and another bucket for any stray weeds.

You're probably wondering what we did with all those stone... Well, the area where I lifted slabs to put in the wind breaker was in need of some stone to make it level with the pathings and we are slowly creating a gravel path round the shed. Not quite half way yet, but already much better than the weeds and dirt...

Once the bodach had reached a certain point, it was time to plant the five Ash saplings donated by a friend which will eventually grow into a hedge.

nice plant pot!

The wee Ashies have been planted between the shed and the hazel tree, which is also quite small at the moment...

And after all the painting and the sifting it was time for food in the style of a BBQ with home made mushroom and mozzarella beef burgers! Yum! :)

Of course having a garden that gets all the all day long does have it's disadvantages when seeking shade... And in this case called for a makeshift canopy made from a ground sheet, some poles and string and a couple of clamps on the fence. It did the job! But will have to think up something better later on...