5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Blast Off...

...Precious Chilli Garden Design is go!


After much deliberation I have finally taken out insurance and informed HMRC of my whereabouts (disappeared for a few years into the world of domesticity) and I have taken on my first job in my new guise.  Although I have a BA (Hons) tucked safetly under my arm, my first job is at St. Edward's RC Primary in Sheerness-on-Sea and consists of digging, and digging, and digging, and then digging some more, until I finally get to lay some gravel down for a seating area for the teachers and a couple of short pathways.


The reason I dug it out by hand and not by machine is that they are going to make some raised beds for the children (not to sleep on I might add) so I had to dig to about 120mm and clean the soil of any weeds or grass and barrow it through a gate and make a large heap.  It was about 32 square metres but the sun has been shining and yesterday, the last day of February, I had my shorts on.  Not today though, probably my fault the sun disappeared then!  

 Bit of a Monty Don picture.

 Health and Safety tape, danger(ous) man at work.

 I needed an edge to go between the gravel and the grass so I decided to use a system called Smartedge.  I'm struggling to find anything smart about it, £151 for 50m and all you have to do is cut through your grass to form an edge and tack the Smartedge in place.  Yeah, right.  Three inch plastic pins that snap if they hit a stone (there are stones in the soil?) and it doesn't form a nice clean edge like the spiel says.  Far from it, I now have to go along on my hands and knees packing it out with soil, adding grass seed and trying to straighten it up.  Avoid at all costs.  Next time it'll be £250 for the metal stuff or maybe a nice brick edge!

Anyway, I'm getting a tan, getting muscles in places where I didn't know I had muscles, and am enjoying being outside getting muddy and listening to 6 Music, marvellous.  

Get out from behind your desk and do a bit of landscaping.  Its good for the soul.