Cutting the Berries' Beds

After laying out the bed design yesterday, we made the most of fine weather to start cutting and lifting the turf where the fruit beds will be. Having ordered the fruit bushes/crowns, we realised that there was nowhere ready to put them when they arrive, and so work had to start post haste on creating these beds. Although the vegetable beds are also marked out, actually creating these will have to wait until the fruit beds are made. Even so, we need, really, to get the vegetable beds cut before winter, so the frosts can help break up the soil.

The grass on the bottom tier of the garden is now rather long, as it hasn't been cut since spring (the previous owner of the house didn't cut it after we put in our offer, and it had got out of hand by the time we moved in). I'm not sure whether this makes lifting the turves harder or not: on the one hand, I have to cut through a thicker thatch, but the grass at least gives me something to handle them by. I fear the former, on balance, but I'm not going to waste the time cutting grass I'm about to lift.

We started with the strawberry bed, my turf cutting and lifting being followed by Liz digging over the soil. We were pleasantly surprised by the soil quality: there's a reasonable depth of good soil over the native clay, and relatively few stones (thus far). I reckon the modernizing owners (of the '70s) probably added considerable topsoil. That's the only plausible explanation for finding that much good soil where one might expect clay and stone. We managed to get the raspberry beds (one either side of the path) cut, too, leaving a path at the bottom of the garden in front of where there will, one day, be a hedge.

The resulting loam stack is where the rhubarb bed will be. This may prove to be unforesightful, when I want to establish that bed, but there's nowhere else particularly suitable. I'll have to find somewhere else for the turves from the other fruit beds, as they plainly won't fit in the rhubarb bed. Perhaps it'll make its way to the far side of the vegetable plots: it'll need a year to break down properly, that's the problem.