Earthworks

A few years back I started out with a compost pile out in the front garden. It's job was to feed the new raised gardens I had installed. It was almost two by two by two meters square and the photo on the right is it’s remains.

The spot where it lived (it was literally alive) is going to be a third raised bed, so I started a new compost heap. This is perched on the top of a slope where the backyard gently falls into the neighbours property.
Friends who can’t compost and a local gardener drop off their green waste at my place and I incorporated this material into the heap.

As green waste rolled in this became two, and a third started to form between a couple of the apple trees.

These mounds proved to be inconvenient when I decided to plant a windbreak of akie akie along the fence.

This corner of the yard is getting a bit crowded.

When I uncovered an old feed bag I had stored in the wood shed, I thought that it was time to build something a bit more permanent and tidy.

The garage sits on a raised section which falls away to the rear lawn. The building casts a shadow out over a section of the yard from noon until dusk. Not a great spot to grow stuff.

By extending the garage pedestal out a bit, I can position the feed bag up against the garage wall.
If I can find some more feed bags, I'll line them up in a row next to it.

Finding ‘fill’ for the earthworks isn’t a problem for me. I have two ways to add decent soil to my property. The first is to build a series of raised beds.
Second is to dig a large hole in the sand and fill it with material such as compost and horse manure. Below is a photo of an excavation I’ve dug out by the back fence. Eventually it’s going to be the home of a grape vine.

Digging up the backyard inevitably unearths trash that a previous resident has buried. Bottles, bits of pipe, plastic bags, tin cans.

I've been collecting a pile of concrete bits so these all went into the foundation of the pedestal.










I have a collection of spoil piles next to compost filled holes all over the property which I can relocate to support the new compost production facility.

    

Once the pedestal was built, I arranged some cardboard on top to slow down the grass working its way up, and to provide a stable base for the bag on top of the loose sand.










After filling the bag, I’ve thrown some old underlay on top.
I’ve noticed with some other bags in the past, that the sun breaks them down so this is some protection.

I need the bag to last at least till next summer.