So I thought I'd just pop a few of them in even though they are from an earlier stage in the project - but they might help make sense in pulling different bits of it all together.
Getting the sandstone rubble out of the hole was jolly hard work. I could only manage about 2/3rds of a trug - and it went down to about 1/2 a trug by the end of a day.
Various friends helped with assorted jobs. Here Jackie and her daughter, Heather, are having a break from getting the small sharp stones out of the bottom prior to me putting the sand liner layer in.
The Nutty Gnome and Himself in the hole!
The large hole inthe top soil to the right of me is a test post hole for one leg of the tea house. If you look at how close the power cable is to the post hole, then the next photo will make sense in terms of the layout of the garden - honest!
You can see the cable and the edge of the post hole at the top left of the picture. The channel being dug is for the cable to be buried in after it has been wrapped in the bright yellow plastic - to make it obvious should I ever have the urge to dig up around there again! The mound of soil to the immediate right of the yellow is the 'island' which will eventually have 5 large stones on it surrounded by moss grass. The stream will run to the top side of the island and the rubble in the foreground is the foundations for one of the paths, which comes down the other side of the island.
The blue pipe will carry water from the bottom pond to the top one.
The stream will come out of the pond roughly where the top edge of the dark soil is on the left of the picture and the top bridge will cross the stream roughly where the spade is. Clear as mud eh?!
13 comments:
Wow, what a lot of work. How many gallons will it be when you are done? How deep?
Also (nosy me) what is that netted area behind the pond? I would love all that space!
Enjoyed seeing more of your progress, at least you had help from friends! I look forward to more of the finished product!
Hi Catherine, nice to see you again. Right, the top pond is about 4 foot deep and holds 5000 litres, which is 1,100 imperial gallons or 1,300 US gallons! I don't know what the final total will be because I haven't finished digging the bottom pond yet - but that is/will be smaller than the top pond. The netted area is the fruit cage, which houses blackcurrants, redcurrants, gooseberries and rhubarb. We had problems with the birds and squirrels eating the fruit. They are allowed to eat as many raspberries as they want though! You can see the raspberry support post to the left of the cage. That also marks the top boundary of the vegetable patch.
Yes, we are very lucky to have so much space - we have an acre in total, with roughly 1/3 at the front of the house and 2/3rds at
the back.
Hello and welcome back Spookydragonfly!Yes, I've been very lucky in how tolerant my friends and family have been about getting dragged in to help over the past couple of years - they all think I'm stark raving bonkers, but help me anyway!!!
I love what I'm doing up there and am very happy that it is really starting to look very like how I envisaged it about 5 years ago when I first came up with the idea!
Thanks for the book recommendations, i'll add them to my list and let you know what i think!! And I love what you are doing with your lovely garden... maybe one day you can give me the secret of keeping things alive! :)
Hello Mrs Robinson and thank you for dropping in - I came across you via my daughter on Loopsie Daisies and I love your blog. I hope you enjoy the books.
The secret of keeping plants alive is simple - keem 'em worried!
I overwater, forget to water, move them in all the wrong seasons, plonk them in all the wrong places, hack them back at the wrong time and so on. The only thing I do do is a bit of reiki on their roots and tell them to "be happy in your new home little plant" - a habit I got from my mum, the original mad gnome herself!
Wow... you don't have a pond, you have a whole aquatic eco system!!!
hello nutty gnome. thanks for popping my blog. it's always great to hear from other gardeners.
my goodness you have been busy. I read all your pond installation entries. it looks like a massive project. all those rocks! my muscles are aching for you. but i'd take some garden aches over the snow that's falling here right now...20cm expected before the storm is over. uggh!
the flintstone wagon is brilliant! the wheels are straight out of the cartoon. I'll pop by again.
cheers
irena
Oh Irena, you have no idea how much I dream of getting decent snow!!! - but you're right about the garden aches. Some Mondays, after a heavy weekend, I am fit for nothing and have to accept that I'm not 21 anymore!
Thank you for popping in.
Hi Nutty Gnome,
Thanks for visiting my blog and leaving comments - apologies for not visiting sooner. That's an amazing work in progress! I am sure all your hard work will pay off and you'll have a fantastic garden. Just looking at all the work you're doing makes me exhausted!
I have to remind myself you started your blog in January but it's about this past summer.
Very impressed with your major plans and great deal of work that you've done. It's smart that you took and saved all these photos !
I see your tempertures are about the same as here in south NJ maybe a little warmer...I'll have to see where you're at on a map.
Have a great night,
Patsi
Hi HM and welcome!Yes, I'm hoping it will be fantastic when it's finished. It's already a joy tp practice tai chi anywhere in the garden, but to have my own 'proper' space will be great.
Hi Patsi. It's taken two summers of work so far - but I was out of commision for about 4 months last spring with a rock-related hernia!!!
I like photography and got used to photgraphing our before and after work when we renovated our 1st house, so have carried on doing the same with both the house and garden here - it's so easy to forget how far you've come some days.
I don't know what the temperature is today, except it's cold! If you look on a map of the UK, I live in Chesterfield, which is just below Sheffield in the middle of the country - a beautiful place to live and roughly the same latitude as New Jersey I think.
That is quite the project you have going on. I am really jealous because my wife and I really want a pond, but we do not have the room for one. I'll keep following your progress so I'll know what to do once we get more room.
Hello Chad and Brandy. Thank you for reading my blog - but just bear in mind that I'm kind of making the garden up as I go along! I had a plan in my head of what I wanted, but NO idea of how I was going to get there so there's been lots of trial and error, one step forward three back sort of thing, but I am enjoying the process.
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