We have been in our new home just over a month, and the time seemed right for a little destruction.

To the right you will see my lovely, partner with her new, favorite toy: a Bobcat Mini Track Loader with the largest trenching attachment that we could rent.

It is a rental from Portland Rent-All and was quite a deal for all the use we got out of it. Along with the trencher, we rented a bucket and cultivator attachment. Check out how cool the cultivator is in this video someone else took.

The plan

Now that we have a double lot, it is time to expand the garden. The plan is to build raised beds – the equivalent of 15, 4’x10′ beds with 11′ mulch borders on the sides for long term berries. In front of the garden will be a decent patch of lawn. But first, we have to level the lot and build a sprinkler. Here is a sketch of what we have in mind.

A work in progress

During the previous few weekends we had been trimming the massive trees that are on the property. Since the house has two fireplaces, we decided to borrow a chainsaw and salvage all the burnable material. However, even after setting aside all twigs over 1″ in diameter, we still had to haul away 1400lbs of material!

Last weekend, we had some help pulling out all the old/dead rhododendrons and lilacs that lined the back 50′ of the yard. Many of these were huge and required quite a bit of effort to remove the stumps. We did end up saving a few to replant, or give away. There was also about 5 wheelbarrows of urbanite chunks (broken concrete) that needed to be removed from the area.

On Friday we rented the Bobcat and went to work. The cultivator made quick work of the lawn – well at least for an hour, until it threw a tread. Three hours later, with the tread repaired, we were back on task. After chewing the lawn, we rotated between the cultivator and the bucket to pull the soil around. By dusk, we had everything fairly level and compact.

Saturday was mostly trenching. The machine worked great, easily digging 30″ deep,  but there were a few issues. 1) Progress is slow and you really have to think about the trench order/direction. Backing up to a fence can leave a six foot gap that you will need to dig by hand and it’s a pain to run over already trenched sections. 2) It rips through small roots great, but large roots are a big problem. Guess which we had :)

The rest of Saturday was spent cleaning/returning the equipment and building the sprinkler manifold. Gary (my super cool father-in-law) did a great job with the manifold and we even managed to get a few of the hot lines run. We also ran 300′ of underground romex for some electrical boxes.

Sunday was full on sprinkler build. Well more like: build, run to the store for parts, build, run to the store… It took all day, but now we have four zones – two for the garden, one for the lawn and one for the mulch zones on the sides of the garden. The mulch zones will be for long lasting berry crops like grapes, currants, blueberries and raspberries.

On Monday (today), I got up very sore and tired to go into work. A big thank you to our families for all the hard work they put in this weekend. It was exhausting.

Next, we have to figure out some water flow issues and get sprinkler heads for the system. After that, it will be time to build boxes and get some sod.

Update

2010-06-03 – here are some new photos