Leaves and bricks
The blog has been silent recently, but that’s because I have been spending my gardening time tidying up, and there is really not much to say on the subject of picking up leaves and pulling up weeds. It has been breathtakingly cold and sometimes I have not been able to stay out for very long because my fingers stop working.
I have started to dig my trench. I have not yet found out how deep it has to be to meet electrical regulations, but I am aiming for a depth of two feet. I don’t know anything about trench engineering and therefore I don’t know how wide it has to be in order to achieve that depth without the sides crumbling in. I am guessing that it has to be a minimum of a spade’s width, so I am going to dig it that wide and see how deep I can get. So far there have not been any troublesome roots from the magnificent beech tree next door but I have found and removed two whole house bricks. There is also the problem of trying to keep the subsoil separate from the topsoil, but what I shall probably do is to put the topsoil in a heap somewhere else in the garden, and pile up the subsoil next to the trench, so I can just tip it back in when the electrician has laid the cable.
The Greenhouse People sent me some very good instructions about what to do with my greenhouse when it arrives. I am having toughened glass, which is apparently not as tough as it sounds, because if you bash its edges just a little bit, it shatters dramatically into tiny pieces. I am not allowed to stand it on the concrete floor of my garage. However, it should be quite comfortable on several layers of the industrial strength dustsheets I bought for last time I painted a room.