Hard ground!

No; never seen many worms in my garden since I moved in 20+ years ago regardless of season, drought or flood, dig or no dig. No wormcasts on the lawn, no moles or hedgehogs, lots of ants, slugs, snails. slowworms, grasshoppers and crickets.
The only exception is the compost heap which can have some in it.

 

You may find this a consolation :
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...usg=AOvVaw3xdMM1dW_lHQr17y5p5xrU&opi=89978449

 

Just an update on the hard soil. We got our grandson to use the mallard on the soil initially to break it up and then used a small electric Rotavator. We have also bought 500l bag of soil to put on top and mix with the clay soil. Hope we are successful. Also used deck boards to enclose the area and to raise the soil level. Quite chuffed with myself being able to do some DIY. LOL!

 

Brilliant! Well done @Surfer and Grandson Surfer

That's much more workable than a clay pan, as long as you can dig a hole without industrial drilling equipment, strong plants will do just fine. Forking in as much rotted manure as you can now and every spring going forwards is a good investment. It does wonders to clay soil.

Great foresight to grow kids whose offspring will be in the prime of physical strength when ours starts to wane- I'm not sure if that counts as DIY though

Now the fun starts, please do keep us posted on your progress

 

We have the 500l of soil compost arriving on Friday just in time for grandsons to spread it for us. LOL!

 

With help of grandsons we managed to break up the soil, add top soil and do a border using deck planking.
Now need to find plants and flowers that do not like too much sunshine as the sun only shines on that patch during the summer in the mornings. During winter it is always in the shade as runs east to west.