Moving on at last

At long last it looks like the drainage problems on the top half of my plot might be starting to clear.

The drainage channel has been dug slightly deeper to allow any surplus water to drain away, and the land on either side is noticeably better.

There is still standing water up near the top path, and I have still got to dig a couple of side trenches to try and clear this but for now the improvement there is has allowed me to start to create the paths that will border my fruit and herb area.

Bark on top of Weed fabric

A few flags on top

The path was made of several inches of bark chippings on top of weed suppressing fabric.  In some places the bark had to be almost six inches thick as the ground underneath was still so soggy that I was still sinking into the mud even through the bark to start with.

Flags were then laid on top of the bark and stamped down to level.

Before

I brought several bags of stone from home to fill the drainage trench, but it was only enough to fill just about half of it's length, so I decided to start at the edge of the plot and move inwards which would allow me to start to make the path on that side also.

I filled the trench to within an inch or two of the surface and then used part of the spoil heap left by the digger to completely fill it in.

This spoil heap needed moving anyway as it was in the way - I need to move the rhubarb bed back towards the path about four feet.

The trench part filled

I didn't have enough spare flags to complete the pathway, but I discovered another problem whilst I was working there

The rhubarb bed had been created in line with the pond which in turn had been made in line with the paths that border the plot, but when I made some rough measurements it seems that the end of the bed closest to me in the picture is about five inches closer to the existing beds to the left of the picture than the far end.

I did the measuring late in the day when I was very tired, so it is entirely possible that I have got it wrong.  I was sure that we did all the measurements when we first set the bed up.

I will have to re-measure next weekend when I am fresh and slightly more awake than I was on Sunday.



Rhubarb crown #1



If it turns out that the beds are misaligned it won't be a major problem as one of the beds I was planning to run between the two paths is for the fruit bushes, so once they have grown a bit the edges of the beds will be hidden a bit so it shouldn't be too noticeable.



Rhubarb crown #2



I have enlisted the help of son Will next weekend to get the rhubarb bed moved to it's correct position. 

Once that has been done I am hoping that I will be able to transplant the rhubarb both from home and also from bed 2. 

I might even be able to bring in Stepdad Ken's rhubarb from his house too.

The top half of my plot as it was on Sunday when I finished.