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GARDEN 21 |
Veggy Plot 3
or... The Veggy Plot gets a new wall.
The boundary wall to the vegetable garden had been leaning for a considerable time,- or for at least the twenty years that I have been the gardener here at Alfriston and it would have appeared to have made sense to repair it at the same time as the vegetable garden was being revamped in 2000. Sadly it was not to be and consequently, in 2003, the wall decided to take matters into its own hands and gave up the ghost altogether. A crack that had been getting wider and wider over the years started to give cause for alarm when actual flints started to fall out following yet another bout of flooding. This part of the garden had to be cordoned off as a safety measure.
Not very obvious but some alarming cracks in the wall widened past the point of no return in 2003.
The wall also took on a rather jaunty angle.
The cold frame area had to be abandoned (during peak growing season) and the frames were decamped to the compost heap for the duration of the repair work. One of the raised beds had to be completely emptied to take some of the stress off the wall. (Opium poppies took the chance to germinate in the subsoil and flowered for the duration of the work).
The top edging of brick paviours was fastidiously rescued for re-use and the brick pier (to the left of Dylan in the picture) was also saved to be used again.
Once the important salvage operation was complete, a pneumatic drill made short work of the remaining flintwork.
(L) The sleepers that formed the raised bed then had to be cleared. (C) The path detail was another area that had to be salvaged for future use. (R) The thankless task of cleaning the flints for re-use.