Week #3

 

20/3/21

Moved stuff around today and did things with some of the plants. Got rid of my worm farm under the ramp and chucked them all in the compost bin, it had worked, there were hundreds of them, so hopefully now they’re all in one place they’ll get through the compost. I’ve used the big yellow Hippo bag to put topsoil in – so all the bins that had compost in are now empty ready for other stuff e.g. moving earth around or storing stone or rubble in.

I’ve got rid of some of the green waste (Ivy) and now only have a little bit left, there’s some wood I need to get rid of – hopefully that’ll go in the Bin at Michelle’s workplace. Still not spent any money – which was nice. Had another little session – got rid of the remainder of the green waste and got rid of the top layer of the remaining wall and collected some rocks from the woods.

21/3/21

Today was a good day, some decisions have been made… (1). The blokes across the road dug all the dirt out and left it in a parking bay for a couple of days and a big truck came along and grabbed it all and took it – that option is £150 whereas a skip is £200 or more. With a skip more carrying and lifting is involved and getting the dirt from ground level up to 4’ and into a skip is back – breaking work I would imagine? https://www.hhmuckers.com/services/grab-hire/

I got a couple plastic trays/boxes to test how much might be moved in one go, so I used one of the orange re-cycling boxes and a green Tesco tray and filled them both up to see (1) How heavy they’re going to be if they need to be moved and tipped into a skip and (2). How much impact it would be in terms of how much dirt goes into one of these and therefore how many single trips it might take? The answer is an awful lot. I then had some other ideas see below…

Plans

(1) Allocate a dry weekend where all of the dirt is dug out and piled up in the parking bay. 2 Days for 4 of us to get the dirt out and into the *bay. Arrange for a grabber lorry to come and

*Or pile it into the top part of the garden and the grabber takes it from there over the fence/wall? That way less distance to move the dirt and it means we’ll be potentially left with a mound of leftovers to level off the grass once and for all. Increasingly this feels like the best option

(2) Dig all the topsoil out first and have at the bottom to spread later for re-seeding or re-turfing. Or some other option although that sounds expensive. Maybe put something down on the shady sides of the garden on Tony’s side where the grass doesn’t grow?

At the moment my estimation is that 4 of us might be able to do it in a weekend.

Steps might be an issue here’s one company with small step style gabions https://www.manomano.co.uk/p/gabion-stone-basket-100-x-30-x-100-cm-7232406

At the minute I’m liking design #3 (see note papers). 2m wide x 1 mtr high x 0.5mtr deep x 4 @ £38.30 per Gabion.

Another variation on steps see here https://www.gardenista.com/submission/2018/gabion-terrace/

 

 

Sunday 4th April - Week #5

 No pic's today. Today we were digging the trench where the Gabions will sit. We've had to dig it angled back a bit so that the gabions tilt towards the grass, as that's what you do. We then filtered the rocks and have laid a bed of small stones and gravel for the gabions to sit on, having sat down and done some research before buying some of the stuff, I've seen that's wrong. I need to put some underlay stuff down first, so tomorrow I'll have to rake all that up again and start again later when the under-lay stuff turns up.

I've ordered the gabions £335.00 and the fabric stuff has cost £25.00.

I need some 80mm perforated pipe (4mtrs) you can only buy it in 25 metre lengths and it's £40 with the delivery, so I'm going to see if I can buy it locally, but so far can't find anywhere to buy it from so I'll try PGR tomorrow.

Over-night it's getting a lot colder and it may snow tomorrow so I've covered the saxon earthworks/burial mound with a tarp along with the work area outside the house, so we're not up to our necks in mud.

Tomorrow is the moment of truth - Danny the digger man is coming round in the evening to see if he can do the job of taking the earth away. Fingers crossed as if he says no - that's a massive setback and a lot more work. 

Week #2 14th March

 

14/3/21

No help today, weather was nice. Bloke across the road is doing something major in his garden and has a big pile of dirt and rubble in his parking bay opposite our garage. Earlier in the week I’d asked if I could take the rubble and he’d said yes, so yesterday and this morning I took some of his rubble.

This afternoon I’ve knocked down the 90% of the wall in the garden and piled all the bricks up for use in the Gabions later. I've seen on Facebook that people have rubble that they will give you if you take it away, so rubble for the Gabions doesn’t look like an issue and I’ve also noticed that all over the estate in the bushes there’s rubble and bricks everywhere.

Bagged up some of the Ivy into smaller bags and will get rid of that sometime today and then it’s the difficult bit getting shot of all the dirt. So far it’s not cost anything. I’ve found a really good video of a big Gabion job completed on the cheap by a woman called Karen and she’s documentedthe process really well with guidance about how not to make mistakes and things you need to consider.

The dirt is the biggest issue. At the moment I’m thinking do it very slowly almost like the Great Escape film – where they dig the tunnels out and fill their pockets with the earth and get shot of it in the exercise yard pocket by pocket kind of thing? Yeah, at this point not sure what we'll do about the dirt, need to research the option - a skip maybe? 

Week #1 March 6th

6/3/21

Made a start with Joe, took out 1/3^rd of the bushes  and loaded all the waste into the rhino bag and dumped in marks Biffa container at work. So far relatively easy and organised.

7/3/21

Removed all of the Ivy and bushes and got rid of the top row of bricks that edged the grass. Now got a big bag of Ivy that we need to get rid of. The bags bigger than before and probably wont be that easy to get over the wall and get into the car. Can’t get out of the back-yard gate at the moment as there’s a bit butt of water in the way which I don’t really want to get rid of.

Broke down one of the old garden benches and moved a lot of the plants under the ramp. Dug up the bluebells that were under the Ivy and potted them up.

All the rubble is being put aside to fill the Gabions up when they're put in. One of the issues is where do we put stuff as we're working as we've got so little space, so the idea is where possible get rid of the stuff as we go.

So far so good, no issues, no dramas and able to get rid of the waste at Michelle's workplace.

Seating - ledge ideas

 Seating ledge ideas.

Bibliography 

https://www.homedit.com/gabion-walls/

Steps

I hadn't given too much thought to the steps, but by March 22nd with the bushes all gone and most of the wall and considering reducing the grass area further still my mind turned to the steps and how these will be incorporated and how I'll make them.

I'll certainly be getting rid of the slabs as they are and using those in the Gabions and I'm considering using slabs in the gabions at the top with some cavities - which is easily done with slabs, but then will the lack of weight cause problems with potential subsidence? Who knows. Anyway here's some ideas I like and different designs... (Click on image for source)

The issue with wood though is in the winter where the steps are it's damp and the wood will get slippery and will be prone to rotting or requiring too much maintenance.

This might be a better idea (click image to link to source). But I can imagine the gravel being dispersed all over the place potentially? 

Bibliography

https://www.gardenista.com/submission/2018/gabion-terrace/

https://www.gabion1.co.uk/gabion-step-options/

Intro

 So this spring and hopefully by the end of May, although I feel that is optimistic, I hope to transform our tiny little garden.

So the feeling is the space at the bottom closet the house is too small. The grass area at the top is too small, but Michelle (My wife) wants the bottom section bigger so that it can be used more socially. Which is fair enough as in the summer it's a nice sun trap and at the moment the bush (Ivy) is so large it's restricting the light. I also functions in another way in that it holds up an old wall my father in law built back in the 1970's.

(C) - Indicates how much grass will be left - not a lot about 12'. At the bottom - the flat area which this is all about is going to gain about 3' or a metre, but there'll be a seat along the entire length of the line (B). The steps (A) will go as well and be replaced by something new as well. Still working this out, but it'll probably be a Gabion style step system.

The main issue is that the earth that has got to be removed is about 10 cubic metres and I want to spend as little money on this as possible. 

Step 1 - get rid of the bush/Ivy. 

tThis is the view from the backdoor looking out into the garden. The drop from the grass to the lower level is about 1.4 metres.

This is the view looking down from the ramp.

At this point I have no idea how easy or hard this is going to be as I said at the start I want this to be as cheap and easy as possible with no time limit in particular, but done by the end of May would be a result.

I will have some help around Easter time as my two sons will be able to help.

The other thing is I haven't got a clue how long any of these jobs will take or how hard they're going to be, but there's no rush.

The initial plan at this stage is to see how easy or tricky getting rid of the bush will be and whether it'll lead to a landslide! 

Bush away first with the help of younger son Joe.

What's planned 

Something like this below

This is pretty much what we're going for, but the base Gabion hopefully will be lower and the ledge will be fitted with wooden planks to provide seating and also place to place plants.

Our flat area which we want to get more use out of would be to the right of our Gabion when seen from the side like this and the grassed area would be to the left.