can I make a molehill out of a mountain ?
Posted: 15 Mar 2011 15:31
Hi
We have moved house, with a good sized garden, but it looks like when the builders built the row of houses over the back of our garden, they have used the back half of our garden to dump a mountain of clay. Over time the years, it has grown loads of brambles and bindweed.
When we decided to buy, the idea was to get a digger in, and remove it.
But circumstances meant we had more urgent work to deal with water springs and lowering the concrete arround the damproof course of the house, and other things.
We then discovered that a digger will not fit down the side of the house, (a mini digger is 1 inch too wide).
My husband is filling skip after skip by hand, and it's an impossible task, so he has started landskaping and terracing on it.
I've been experimenting, the surface has been broken down by the winter, and if I tread and do the twist on it, it breaks down into a powder. If I do this, and then mix it in with good soil, I imagine it will be ok, but what racio of clay to soil can I use, before it's no good for fruit and veg growing ?
Yes I know it will take me years to do, but if I aim to make raised beds, a little at a time, might get something out of it.
I always compost, and will add that.
Regards
Thelma
We have moved house, with a good sized garden, but it looks like when the builders built the row of houses over the back of our garden, they have used the back half of our garden to dump a mountain of clay. Over time the years, it has grown loads of brambles and bindweed.
When we decided to buy, the idea was to get a digger in, and remove it.
But circumstances meant we had more urgent work to deal with water springs and lowering the concrete arround the damproof course of the house, and other things.
We then discovered that a digger will not fit down the side of the house, (a mini digger is 1 inch too wide).
My husband is filling skip after skip by hand, and it's an impossible task, so he has started landskaping and terracing on it.
I've been experimenting, the surface has been broken down by the winter, and if I tread and do the twist on it, it breaks down into a powder. If I do this, and then mix it in with good soil, I imagine it will be ok, but what racio of clay to soil can I use, before it's no good for fruit and veg growing ?
Yes I know it will take me years to do, but if I aim to make raised beds, a little at a time, might get something out of it.
I always compost, and will add that.
Regards
Thelma