A kind of digging

A few days ago, BH suggested that the southern sector of the bed beyond the small ponds, the one containing the oak tree and nut tree No.2, needed digging over. The weeds had got beyond what was reasonable hand weeding.

Suspecting that the ground, which had not been dug for many years, was very hard, I thought the right approach was to use a small hoe to slice through the weeds about a centimetre below the surface - after having softened things up the evening before with a few gallons of water.

Rub together the resultant stuff to separate the weeds from the earth, the quick from the dead, as it were. Weeds to lightly compost the ground by the fence, to the east of the new location of the bug box (see reference 1). No bugs to be seen in the earth.

The underlying ground was indeed very hard and neither garden spade nor garden fork made any impression. Out with the mattock (the sort of thing once used in the demolition of brick buildings), which did make an impression, taking out lumps of around 10 cubic inches a time. Oddly, although considerable force was needed to take these lumps out, once they were out, they disintegrated on being lightly tapped. At the end of which, this southern sector was dug to a depth of around two inches. Not exactly what would be thought proper for cabbages, down on the allotment gardens, but good enough here given the resident trees.

Add a bag and a half of potting compost, all we had to hand, stir up and then level with the rake.

The plan being to install some kind of (low maintenance) ground cover in a week or so's time, with a choice of several being available from elsewhere in the garden. Which will hopefully thrive in this dry but fairly sunny spot.

PS: regarding the considerable force, there was a similar oddity a few days previous. I was trying to cut a bit of dead wood lodged in the top of one of small beech trees, using the long pole pruner from Wolf, noticed at reference 2, at full extent. I failed to cut, despite applying considerable force, but succeeding in dislodging. And the bit of branch just crumbled when one stood on it, this despite not caring to be cut.

Reference 1: http://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/04/bug-box.html. East from the bug box means back down the garden, towards the house, towards the road. Note the confusion caused by the common phrases like 'I'm just going down the garden' in a back garden like ours which runs uphill not downhill. The phrase, I think from North America, 'I'm just going downtown' confuses in the same way. Perhaps from the days when town centres were down by the river and lots of people lived in the surrounding hills.

Reference 2: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/10/autumn-cutlery-1.html.