Non-Gardener builds an Observatory, Garden Railway and even Dabbles with Plants!

22nd June 2023

Further gravel washing and spreading continued on the 22nd, filling the area across the end of the track, closest to the hawthorn hedge. This area ended up taking a full 850Kg bag to fill it.



23rd June 2023

I spent much of Friday the 23rd decanting the three remaining bulk bags, into six other bags, giving me a total of nine at a little under 300Kg each. Nothing was done over the weekend as I was at Fly-In in Yorkshire on Saturday and a local Jeep event on Sunday.

26th June 2023

On Monday morning, I got the Dodge back out, re-assembled the crane and started transporting the gravel to the bottom of the garden. Eighteen trips from the front of the house to the back in all. This took me until lunch time. I took seven bags to the build site and because I may have a little more than needed, dropped the last two at the back of the workshop. If I need them for the railway, I can move them, otherwise, they are in the right place for spreading on the drive.

 

28th June 2023

The day was filled with lots of heavy showers. I was out spreading gravel again, but there were frequent pauses waiting for rain to pass. The Fuchsia in the first picture is now shedding flowers into the gravel. Having blown them all away with a leaf blower, I covered the area with a plastic sheet. It desperately needed a haircut, but not in the rain!

I don't know how long it had been there, but tucked away at the back of the woodland, it had never been trimmed. It was far too big and shading the area I wanted to plant. The tallest parts were about nine feet.



By the end of the day, I'd emptied another four bags of gravel, around another 1200Kg and have most of the area filled to its final level. There's one bag of gravel left by the gate and that should finish off the low spots around the track bed.

30th June 2023

The Fuchsia was shedding flowers at the slightest breeze, so cutting it back was a priority to save the ballast from being covered, particularly with strong winds forecast. I started chopping away, cutting it back and down in height and in the end, had filled a half ton dumpy bag full of cuttings.



After sweeping up the bits on the plastic sheet, it was moved to around the conifer, as that also needed trimming. That had filled in quite well since its repair from having one side bald. While the hedge trimmers were out, I also cut back the purple bush on the lawn, which I think is a Japanese barberry. While it was only trimmed a couple of months ago, had also sprouted eighteen inch long stems. Just as I finished that, the rain started and it just got heavier. That ended work for the day. The trimming left the railway area much more tidy.

 

1st & 2nd July 2023

There was more rain on the 1st, but I managed to paint the inside edge of the lawn edging sleepers with bitumen before the rain came. Sunday the 2nd was better, though still a few showers. I started barrowing topsoil from the bulk bag by the workshop to the new lawn, then raking it out level. The first layer was slowly walked over to pack it down before a second layer was added to bring it up to the final height. This gave me an indication of how much topsoil I'd need for the rest of the lawn. The rest of the day was spent trimming the laurel. On the morning of the 3rd, I ordered eight tons of topsoil to finish the lawn and the embankment.



5th July 2023

At around 8:15am on Wednesday morning, a big truck turned up loaded with 8 tons of topsoil. Rather than a tipper truck, it had a crane and grab to unload it. I had a number of bulk bags from previous deliveries, though some were being used to cover the new lawn area to stop weed growth. I had an old plastic tarp with some holes that I spread out on the lawn area so that I could use the bags for moving the topsoil.

By the end of the afternoon, I'd partially filled fifteen bulk bags with around 300~400Kg in each to be within the lifting ability of my Dodge, without overloading the rear springs. It was really tiring, so assuming I could move the following morning, I'd get the Dodge out again and start transporting it to the back garden.



In other news, the two veggie planters were filling out well with carrots, cauliflowers, cabbage, potatoes and strawberries. I had a temporary net over the strawberries to keep the birds off, but finished a more practical netting frame today, with opening lids for easy access. I needed another larger one for the other planter, but that was probably a rainy day project.

 

6th July 2023

The day was spent driving the Dodge up and down the drive and garden carrying bags. By the end of the day, I'd dropped off nine bags on the lawn and two by the workshop, then ran out of space for any more. Those moved would need emptying before I could bring more around.

7th July 2023

On the 7th, I started spreading soil. The nine bags on the lawn, were all emptied and raked out to flatten the surface. Around 3.5 tons at a guess. It's flat, but not level, as the height of the garden drops from left to right towards the railway. It wasn't quite up to the final lawn height and I hadn't filled the ramp from the lower lawn. I need to bag and transport more soil from the front garden before I could go further.



The soil quality isn't as good as the first stuff we got for the veggie planters, but at £12 per ton, much more affordable than the original £100 per 850Kg bag - especially with 8 tons delivered! I think it had been reclaimed from a building site, as there was quite a few big stones, broken glass, silicone sealant nozzles and other rubbish to pick out, but it's fine for under a lawn. With a little sieving, it was actually quite nice soil.

 

9th & 10th July 2023

We continued bagging our front garden Mount Snowdon, filling another twelve bulk bags with approximately three to four tons of topsoil. Based on the amount of bag filling we've done so far, it felt like we had much more than eight tons of soil delivered! The Dodge brought them all to the back garden before the end of the day.

The following morning, we hired a vibrating compactor, to firm up the lawn area. The clay soil was wet and sticky from the overnight rain, but a sprinkling of sand helped it slide.



Once that was done, another six bulk bags of soil were emptied onto the lawn, almost another two tons. This time, rather than going straight from the bag to the lawn, it was all sieved into a wheelbarrow to get the stones, glass, nails, clay balls and pottery out of it.



That left some quite nice soil, which was tipped onto the lawn and raked out flat, ready for seeding. About the last four barrow loads was done in the rain, but by that time, I wasn't going to stop for anything. Feeling very tired, but really pleased with the way it was looking. I planned to seed the following day and was looking forwards to it turning green over the next couple of weeks.

 

11th July 2023

Finally, the big day of seeding the lawn. First thing, we took the compactor back to the hire shop and once home, I used a piece of drain pipe to roll the soil out flat, without compacting it too much. Once rolled out, I started scattering grass seed. It wasn't an easy job on a day with 15mph winds!

I had to work fairly close to the ground around the edging next to the railway ballast and observatory slates. Elsewhere, I was able to walk around stooped over, to put the seed box about two feet from the ground. That gave a reasonable spread of seed without the wind carrying it too far away from the target area. The big box of seed was just enough to cover the whole area, but we did have an older, already open box that I could use for any areas that need additional seeding, once I see it coming through.

Once the whole area was seeded, I started sieving soil again and lightly spreading a layer of soil over the seeds, to both hide them from birds and to help keep moisture around the seed.



That took another two and a half bags of soil. After that, I gave the area a few minutes of watering, to wet it all down and stop the wind from blowing it all away. I planned to give it another watering that evening, once the sun dropped and the wind calmed down, but there was a big downpour early evening, so no need!

 

13th & 14th July 2023

On the 13th, I did some weeding of the railway embankment area and then pinned down a weed membrane to block any existing growth. The four tree trunk offcuts were then placed along the embankment area, to give some additional height. They could gradually rot away into soil.



I then started barrowing soil from the bags near the lawn and workshop, to be piled up to form the embankment. I carried on until I ran out of full bags.



On the 14th, I spent most of the day on the drive, bagging more top soil and got another 13 bulk bags filled with earth. I'd finally reached the end of the pile. I was finishing off the last bag as the heavy rain arrived, so quickly finished shovelling and got the rain cover over it before coming indoors. I wanted to keep as much rain off as possible as wet soil would dramatically increase the weight my crane would have to lift. The weather forecast didn't look great for several days, so a pause in progress was likely.

 

18th July 2023

On the 17th, I was doing a little work on the observatory and my new lawn was still bare soil. In 24 hours, it went from seeds, to blades of grass at least an inch tall. There were a few areas that looked a bit thin where nothing had happened, but I'd give it time. I could re-seed any thin spots later.



22nd July ~ 4th August 2023

There was a long pause in progress while we had a holiday in Normandy, France. It had been 18 years since we were there with our Jeep and re-visited all the D-Day beaches and museums, among a few other things. This time, due to the cost, we made the trip without the Jeep.

I left my neighbour in charge of watering the lawn, but he only had to do it once, because it rained almost every day in the UK. In France, I think we only had two days of rain. The heavy rain before and during our trip, did wash some seed away, so I had already done some reseeding before leaving.

By the time we got back, we had a very green lawn. It was still a little thin in places and had a few weeds coming through from stuff that was in the topsoil, but it was getting there. It wasn't firm enough to walk on, so I left it until the roots spread and it dried out, before I did any further reseeding or cutting.



With the lawn green and the railway laid, the area was looking quite complete, even though it was far from it. It did however allow me to take a comparison photo, showing all the changes. February 2021 and August 2023. The most recent picture was taken with the wide angle lens on my phone, so the shed and playhouse are stretched a bit, but it's a fairly close match for the position of the original.

 

7th~11th August 2023

The multiple bags of topsoil on the driveway, covered up pre-holiday were still there. I had to wait a couple of days before it was dry enough to move it.

On the 7th, it was a full on Dodge day, moving sixteen bulk bags from the drive to the back garden. Two were dropped near the new lawn, while the rest were stacked up around the garage, garden wall and workshop until needed.



The following day, the two bags by the lawn were scooped out into the wheel barrow and tipped out into the embankment next to the railway. The drive was also jet-washed to remove the remaining traces of the soil pile.

Between the 9th and 11th, I got another five bags emptied into the embankment, slowly building up the height and width. I also mowed the main lawn, which due to all the rain in July, hadn't been mowed in about 4 weeks. It had got really long and took some effort. With the garden bins being collected mid-week, I also did quite a bit of hedge trimming too.

 

20th August 2023

The veggie planters, which saw the first seeds planted in May, were producing well. For a first time trying to grow veggies, we were quite pleased with the results.



Since getting home from our holiday, I'd moved around seven bags of earth into the railway embankment. On the 20th, I decided to have a final big push to get it finished. With all the rain through July and early August, the soil in the bags got very wet, despite trying to keep them covered. As a result, the soil was very wet and the further down the bag I went, the more sticky and clay like it became.

It was really hard work digging it out of the bags, into the wheelbarrow, then pushing it down the garden, up the ramp and onto the embankment. It took several hours, but I emptied another eight bulk bags of soil. It was so sticky, I often had to dig it out of the bag, then use a trowel to scrape it off the shovel into the barrow! Based on the volume and soil density with it full of water, it was approximately four to five metric tons.

 

I'm pleased with the overall size of the embankment. Early on, I was wondering if I had two much soil, but it worked out fine. I saved one last bag of soil for filling in some low spots in the lawn at a later date. In the top of the embankment, I placed a spare paving slab to give me somewhere to stand to do future maintenance. I'd probably add a few more large stones randomly along the embankment to use as stepping stones, also to aid weeding. With the right ground cover, the slab should be hidden. Planting was likely to wait until the spring of 2024.



The new lawn was taking hold quite well, 'though I did over-seed some thin areas after getting back from France. For the next part of the job, I needed to order another fourteen sleepers for the final top layer of the sleeper wall and thirty six 900 x 600 paving slabs, for along the hawthorn hedge.

The day ended with a fireball sun setting on the West North West horizon, so I grabbed a few phone pictures over the gate. The last time I did this, there was no ballast or lawn.

 

23rd August 2023

On the 23rd, I painted another fourteen sleepers, which had been recently delivered. These were to finish off the top edge of the sleeper wall.



26th August 2023

We spent most of Saturday the 26th moving thirty eight, 900 x 600mm paving slabs. We found an architectural salvage yard selling reclaimed paving slabs at around one third of the price of new slabs, but unfortunately, they didn't deliver.

As a result, we took my flatbed trailer on the 28 mile round trip to collect them ourselves - twice! With a total weight of almost 2,700Kg, we had to split the load, with each round trip to get there, load, get home and unload, taking around two and a half hours. It was back-breaking. Here's just eighteen of them.

 

27th August 2023

The weather was against me on the 27th, but I was determined to push on and get the sleepers fitted. The day was interrupted by frequent heavy rain, so the tools were in and out of the observatory on a regular basis, since that was the closest power supply and under cover shelter.



Ten sleepers were full length with another three cut lengths. I ran out of time and dry weather for the last two short lengths, a four feet and two feet length. I hoped to get those fitted the following day. I could then move onto the hawthorn hedge path.

 

7th~15th September 2023

Over the end of August and the beginning of September, I was away at a World War 2 event, so didn't get back to the garden until the second week in September. With the last two pieces of sleeper fitted just before I went away, I was now moving on to the hawthorn path. I decided the best plan would be to pave the area behind the observatory first.

Starting here would give me access from my trailer hardstanding to get materials in. From the end nearest the new lawn, I could then work towards the railway, having a path under me as I worked down to the end. When that was done, I could turn around and work up the garden from the observatory, across the back of the trailer hardstanding and up behind the garage.

Rather than one long sloping path, I wanted each paving slab level, resulting in a slightly stepped descending path. This was so I'd have a level surface to place a chair or ladders on, to give me a higher stable platform to use the hedge trimmer. I started by clearing weeds and some roots, and cutting the earth back to approximately level.



I didn't want to dig out and dispose of tons of topsoil, only to buy in tons of hardcore to replace it. Youtube to the rescue! I watch a video on paving which explained what civil engineering projects do, including Heathrow's Terminal 5. Rather than digging out earth and replacing it with hardcore, they use a machine to break up the existing earth, mix cement into it and then pack it down again. This formed a stable layer onto which they could pour concrete. The same video then showed the same technique at a small scale for the Youtuber's garden path.

I welded up a small attachment for my drill, to help break up the clay soil and help mix in the cement. It didn't need to spin particularly fast to be effective. Here's a quick test.

 

@ArmyAirForce, that looks like the whisk from my Kenwood Chef!