A stroke of luck - The Accidental Smallholder

Posted: Sunday 30 January, 2011

by Rosemary at 8:19pm in Gardening Comments closed

One (!) of the major projects we have going on at the moment is setting up the vegetable garden. We are using a 3/4 acre paddock where the coil for the heat pump was installed. After planning on paper (the easy bit), we bought the timber for the raised beds and Dan and John built the first one. Then we had all the snow and ice, so work halted.

Last weekend, Dan and I moved the timber into the vegetable garden and work was set to resume. The soil dug out for the coil was to be barrowed into the raised beds. THis turned out to be a huge job but this weekend, we had a stroke of luck.

Our neighbour, Alan, was cleaning up his yard - he's a roofing contractor - and hired a minidigger on Friday. But since he didn't have to take it back until tomorrow, he asked us if we wanted it for the weekend. Not only that, but he loaned us his flatbed truck. Over yesterday and today, Dan and John have built the remaining four raised beds and filled four of them. It would have taken us forever with barrows.

John's a dab hand with the mini-digger - boys and toys. We're all so tired tonight though, so easy day tomorrow then we're hoping to get the gates on maybe Tuesday.