Day 18 - A hard day's labour on a very hot day!

I did a 10 hour day working in my garden today!

The hottest day of the year - not really an ideal sort of day for digging, moving slabs and stones, rebuilding the shed base and carting away trug loads of rubble for disposal but that's how I spent today! I'd called in reinforcements and this was the only day in June my little team could help!

It wasn't the most nature filled day but we obviously found a lot of bugs and I made sure everything we dug up or uncovered was moved to safety if they didn't scuttle away themselves. I also found a cocoon of some thing in the soil (reburied it) and one of those really long centipedes.

I had a gardener in last Monday to do some digging I couldn't have managed and so this was phase 2 of my garden project, the very first stages in changing from an untidy, weed filled, rubble filled waste of space garden to a wildlife garden! I've still got a lot more digging and rubble disposal to do but everything I needed help with is done now - we really achieved a lot today and it feels good to have made some serious progress!

 
One day, I'm digging up all the shrubs and plants in this corner and will probably put my pond here (not quite decided yet!). Last Monday, the gardener trimmed that hedge on the left right back as it had grown out almost to where the trug is below. There were some conifers in there too which I had removed.

I was standing by the new shed base when I took the photo above. The previous shed was on a larger base and was much further forward due to the overgrown hedge.  Today we took up all the slabs, made a new base further into the corner and then laid just enough slabs to fit my new shed. We also moved those laurels to fill a gap in the hedge and cover up a fence panel. I'll probably have a fence in where I had the conifers and hedge removed - I just need someone to dig the posts in for me, the soil in this garden is so hard! Then I'll put things on the fence - bug/bird boxes and that sort of thing - and probably grow something up it too to green things up a bit again after the drastic hedge cut (It was privet and I'm told it probably won't recover).

I made a pile of stones, pebbles and slabs in one corner, just to get everything out of the way for future garden redesigning. Some of these will be reused when I create a pond and spaces for wildlife.  That's a project for over the winter though I think. All of this was laid out around the shed and shrub corner!

My feet were so black underneath! I do love a good day getting dirty though, plenty more scrapes and bruises added to my collection today too!  I've had a good scrub in the shower since I took this, of course, my feet are back to their usual colour now!

I've had many, many drinks outdoors today and didn't think to take a photo but, rather like yesterday, I had a nice refreshing cider in the garden (that's the garden where I live now, not the garden I spent all day in!). I don't normally have two pints of cider in one weekend but I've definitely earned them both!

My parents only got the garden furniture out this afternoon, then had visitors until this evening, which is why there's a swing seat placed randomly on the lawn here - it does have it's own spot further down the garden normally and will be carried down to it!

I thought I was going to be exhausted after today and feel awful after a day in the sunshine. I did suffer headaches and feeling sick when I was digging in the heat but now I feel really good after a hard day's work and my headache (which I'd had on and off since Friday) has gone! I'm quite looking forward to another session of digging now.

A look back... 

On Day 18 last year I was at Forest School...

In 2015, day 18 brought fun with bubbles in the garden with a visiting toddler.