I’ve been itching get started on sorting out the garden and beds at both the front and back of the barn all summer. So, when we arrived at the barn last Saturday to find S digging a ditch along the drive with a digger and with the offer of starting on our garden there seemed like no time to lose. As it is dark at this time of year by 5PM, I rigged up a couple of halogen lights and we started work that evening…

From Barn Conversion 2010

We realised early on that we weren’t going to be able to move a great deal of earth. With no tipper, dumper or any other way of transporting soil away bigger than a wheel-barrow there’s only so much that can be achieved by digging, dumping and scraping. But with the tree / hedge line being higher than the barn and the generally sloping nature of the site, I’m not sure that removing a great deal of soil would be the correct thing to do.

We got held up for an hour or so when a track came off. But after a few false starts managed to release the pressure from the wheel carriage that the track had slipped off which meant the end guide wheel ‘sunk’ back into the housing and in doing so slackened off the track. Then with a large metal bar managed to lever the track back onto the slowly running guide wheel and the whole track & wheel assembly fell back into place like a bicycle chain back on its sprocket.

We cleared most of the grass from the main areas that will be laid to lawn, smoothed over the lumps and bumps that ran down the central slope and moved the two fruits trees that were always a little too close to the barn.

I’ve not yet photographed what we achieved – I will take some photos this weekend and post those.