The trouble with a blog is that if you neglect it you feel guilty. It's not that I haven't been doing anything in my garden in the last 4 months. Far from it. Its more that I have redirected my website efforts to my voluntary work wth RE-Betchworth. I set up a new biodiversity website to record and curate my activities, inquiries and movies in and around Betchworth. https://rebetchworth.weebly.com/ I also began a new magazine project to communicate the work of our group. Because I was doing these other things I tell myself I shouldnt feel guilty, but I do because my garden and blog are part of me.
So what have I been doing in my own garden? Well my efforts in the last few months have been focused on the woodland. On November 15th - just as the rains began! I started making a path. More accurately I started making a pond but decided that I needed to make a path next to the pond and once I cleared the ground for the pond and started digging a hole - making the path became the main project.
I wanted to create a path that arced through the middle of the woods about 50m in length. I had to clear the scrub by hand and the ground was very humocky so there was quite a bit of digging and leveling to do. Aftyer that I laid down roofing felt, carpet and plastoc sheets to discourage the brambles and for my base I used a thick layer of wood chips. But the wood chip pile was about 100m away so I had to barrow in about 50 loads of wood chip. It was a bit of a marathon but I was spured on by the quote that was attributed to the great Hanibal who crossed the Alps - "we will find a way of make one", Well I was definitely making one here.
I get distracted very easily so as I was building the path to relieve the monotony of wheel barrowing I also carried on digging out a small pond and then expanded it by digging ditches in the Gault Clay. Then I had to build a bridge over the ditch I had dug. I edged the path with tree trunks that had been cut from trees that had been felled. All the time it rained and rained and I was often knee deep in mud.. But by the end of December my woodland path was complete.
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