
It’s been a cold, hard week of freezing temperatures. It’s hard to dig trenches in frozen soil, and it doesn’t help when the little terrier steals the tennis ball from the collies and won’t give it back!

At the start of the week we used a pick-axe and mattock to get through the frozen soil, but by Friday the earth was solid to a depth of 12cms (5 inches) and we had to try something else. We’ve never used a hammer drill to dig before, but it certainly worked!

We built nine raised, level beds in this gently sloping garden. Several smaller beds are easier to manage than a single large one, as you can have different crops in each bed and there is access all around for planting and harvesting.

With the job successfully completed, the only remaining challenge was to try and fold the tarpaulin up in winds gusting at up to 80km/h….