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

3rd April 2023

To the front of the garage, there was a pile of slate, stones, bricks and broken up tarmac, left by the previous owner. I had no interest in sorting through the pile to pick out the slates to reuse, particularly as we had four bulk bags of the stuff. Instead, this would make good infill material under the end of the railway, next to the sleeper wall. It would also tidy up this area of the garden.



It was all wheel-barrowed to the bottom of the garden and spread out over the top of the two large chunks of concrete. This area needed the highest infill, so it made sense to doing it with something firm that wasn't going to settle.

I also brought one real railway sleeper down to the area, to help work out the next part of the project. I needed to know where the track would be laid in order to work out the space to each side. That in turn would give me my crossing gate position and where the sleeper divide would go between the railway and the new lawn.

 

14th April 2023

A small job I'd wanted to do for a while, was to pull up some paving from the lawn. They were awkward to mow over. What I thought were twelve inch square stepping stones, turned out to be two feet square paving stones. I got the turf cut away from both stones that day, but I ran out of time, so lifting them would have to wait.



18th April 2023

It was a hard day's work digging out high spots and filling in low areas with a combination of earth and gravel for the track bed. This area was now looking pretty good as far as surface preparation is concerned. At this point, it was all done by eye, but there was still work to do.

 

19th ~ 21st April 2023

The 19th saw more weed clearing and earth moving. The earth for the first two sleepers, separating the new lawn and railway, was levelled and the sleepers laid in place. The picture shows the first test fit, showing a slight hump at the join between the two.

They wouldn't be staked down until later. I wanted to lay a weed membrane under this sleeper divide, all the way under the railway to the planned embankment at the end of the garden. So until all the earth moving was complete, I didn't want anything permanently fixed in place. I tried to keep the lawn area covered as much as possible, to minimise weed growth while I was working around it.



A number of decorative sleepers were laid out with the real sleeper to check on the ground level. This allowed my to look across the top of them all to see that they were level and parallel to each other. From there, I was able to do additional packing to correct the ground height.

To the right of the track, I planned to build up a small embankment, which would then be planted with various flowers and ground cover. That way, I could stand at the crossing gate, looking across the track, with a background of colour and greenery.

 

I don't think you mean me, I've not posted on here before.

 

23rd April 2023

On the 23rd, Lynne and my daughter started planting vegetables. Finally, planting green things instead of digging mud! We'd never grown anything before and in the last house, had only ever planted some small, pre-grown flowers in the rockery.

So with thirty six square feet to fill, we went for potatoes, lettuce, cauliflower and carrots. In the words of Jeremy Clarkson, "How hard can it be?".



They did a little research and finding out carrots liked it a little bit sandy, dug some sand into the soil/compost mix in half of the first planter.

 

The lettuce and cauliflower was in the second half of the first planter, with the potatoes in the second planter. The last half had some strawberries planted, which were moved from a tall growing pot.



While they were playing with plants, I managed to lever out the two paving slabs. I back filled the holes with soil, packed down hard and finished with a thin scattered layer of soil, into which I scattered grass seed. Another light covering of soil and it was all watered in.

 

Apologies @Allotment Boy , I meant @ArmyAirForce .

 

25th April 2023

More digging! This time it was the foundations for the level crossing gate. The first one wasn't too bad, just a mix of gravel and clay soil.



The second was a nightmare. I don't think there's anywhere else in the garden with as many roots as in that two feet square hole. Everything ranging from a fraction of an inch to three inches diameter. I ended up with a wood chisel, hammering it into the ground to cut through the roots in order to get a small trowel into the ground to start digging.

It was very slow going and took most of the day to dig the two holes. I finished the day with a little more work on bedding in the sleepers along the hedge.

 

27th April 2023

Yet more digging, but today, I got three of the rear edging sleepers in place and two and a half sleepers of the second layer screwed on top. The off-cut from the half sleeper was cut a little further to fit in the centre stretch of the lawn/railway sleeper divide.



1st May 2023

Work at the railway paused on the 1st. My neighbour hired a scarifier and after he'd done his lawn, let us borrow it for ours. Even though it was powered, it was still hard work. I may have mentioned earlier in the thread, but it's a two mile walk to strim and mow the lawn. Doing the scarifying and then raking up the mess was back breaking.

 

Look! a rare shot with me in front of the camera, rather than behind it. I can't remember with 100% certainty, how many bulk bags we filled, but probably in the region of four to six.



What had been a nice green lawn when we started, was looking somewhat brown and sorry for itself. It needed doing and would recover, but it's not encouraging when something looks worse after you finish!

 

10th May 2023

Nothing happened from the end of April into early May, due to weekends away, heavy rain and when the rain did stop, the ground was too wet. Finally between showers on the 10th, I got some concrete and high density concrete blocks laid, forming the foundation for one of the gateposts. We got the mixer for £50 from Facebook marketplace. Already well used when we got it, it performed well during the observatory build and was still going strong on the railway. I can't imagine how I would have managed without it.



Four 10mm diameter, 500mm length re-bars, are concreted into the corners of the foundation to help anchor the footing into the earth. I had a feeling this was going to be too low and was going to need to be taller. It was dug at the height it was, because most of that earth was undisturbed and would be far more firm, compared to the backfill.

 

11th May 2023

The second concrete gatepost foundation was laid on the 11th. Due to the amount of clearance between the bottom of the gate and the ground, I was probably going to have to raise this foundation further. The reduced clearance was as a result of having to cut off part of the gatepost, which was partially rotten.



I also did some more excavation for the sleepers that run along the hawthorn hedge, in order to lay the last 12 feet of these edging sleepers.

 

16th & 17th May 2023

Over the next few days, I finished digging out the soil for the edging sleepers. I'd also done some tree surgery on what I thought was just a conifer bush at the bottom of the garden. My plant app says it's a Savin Juniper ( a type of conifer ), but I wouldn't know either way having only had gardening thrust upon me in 2021!

This bush was partially shaded by the half dead one that we cut down. As a result, its front face was also devoid of greenery. As I'm sure you all know, Conifers don't grow back well, so I started knitting branches from the sides of the bush to fill in the bare area in the front. Branches were pulled around and tied in place with nylon garden twine. It looks much better now and once those branches fill out a bit more, with a little future trimming, it should become quite respectable again.



18th May 2023

The next day, I did some more work on the gate footings. I had to make some compromises with the gate, for the reasons of practicality. I needed to remember that this is a garden feature, not a working railway. The gate will be too low to open and clear the tracks.

If I wanted to be able to open it, the gate foundations would need to be raised by around 12 inches, or the whole trackbed dug out and lowered by 12 inches. Raising the gate was going to make it look rather odd, sticking up so high above the future lawn, with a large gap below it. Digging out the trackbed through roots, concrete and bricks left over from the air raid shelter, was far more work than I was prepared to do. As a result, the gate height is set for a practical and aesthetic appearance in relation to the rest of the garden.

The main footing, nearest the hedge, was raised by the addition of a 2 inch thick paving slab being cemented on top of the concrete blocks. This was one that was lifted from the lawn. This raised it by around two and a half to three inches.



The other footing was quite a bit lower, due to the slope of the garden. I added two more concrete blocks on top, bringing it to a very similar height to the other footing. Once the mortar was set, I needed to back fill around them with earth, ready for the weed membrane that will cover the whole area.

 

25th May 2023

The concrete footings were packed around with mud and left to set a few days while I had other jobs to do.



On the evening of May 25th, when wifey was home from work and free to help, we carried the gate from the rear corridor, around 150 feet down the garden to the railway location. The footing for the hinge end of the gate was drilled for the rawl bolts and they were installed. The lawn/railway dividing sleepers were then lifted and a 5 metre square weed membrane spread out over the trackbed area.

The sleepers were replaced and could be drilled and pinned down properly. The membrane was cut around the rawl bolts and the gate lifted and lowered into place. It took a bit of jiggling to get all the bolts through the metal post mount, without pushing them back down the holes, but eventually all eight nuts were in place and tightened down.

 

The other end of the gate was supported on a block of wood until the other gatepost could be fitted. I need to order some steel plate to make the second mounting bracket, which will then support the end of the gate with its locking bolt. By the time we finished, the sun was going down.



I could see plenty of future photo opportunities around the railway and gate.