Yesterday was a good day for gardening, so when I got home, I changed into my nice dirty jeans, picked up the fork, and started working on the left-hand bed in my garden. The soil quality wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t what I’d call good soil either. Compared to other spots in the garden, the soil was quite solid, and it also dried out very easily. I decided that I actually liked the plants that were in the bed, but that I’d re-arrange them while working on the bed.

Step 1 – Start taking plants out. Rather than take them all out at once, I decided to just start at one end of the bed and work my way towards the other end, lifting each plant out as I went. The big hebe (a hebe buchananii) really didn’t want to come out of the ground, and required liberal application of the pick-axe/trenching tool to get underneath the root ball and lever it up. It also got a good trimming while I was at it, as it was a bit large for the bed. The rest of the plants came up with nary a protest.

Step 2 – Fork the entire bed over.

Step 3 – Fold in 100 litres of manure, and 75 litres of compost.

Step 4 – Choose new locations for all of the plants, dig new holes, wet down the holes and put the plants back.

Step 5 – Collapse into a chair with some hot food, as I’ve been working flat out for over 2 hours.