Weeds, Walls and a few more 'round to its'.

If there is one thing we can grow on our farm it is weeds.  Actually we are more than capable it seems of growing rocks too, but most people would scoff at such a notion so I tend not to say it too often, not until they have experienced it for themselves. After that, they say it too. lol!

Practically every day you will find us, (usually as we are watering the garden), digging out weeds that we swear seem to spring up overnight so that they vie with the flowers and vegetables for space in our lovely little garden.  Thing is our garden is not so little when you look at it as a whole, in fact it probably extends to around an acre (490 sq metres).  Which means it takes a lot of time and effort to clear it of weeds so for the most part we wait till we have some willing helpers before we try to tackle it all.

Luckily this past week we have had two such helpers arrive in the form of Annie and Enrico...

Using the ever faithful Azada they soon began to cut back the grasses and weeds that had sprung up since they were last trimmed, which you may find hard to believe was roughly a month ago.


Boy do the weeds grow fast on my farm. 

 

The above pictures show just a small section of our garden but I think you will agree that Annie and Enrico did a fantastic job at cutting back those darn weeds.
Good job guys!  

Oh, check out the tree on the left. Can you see what I can see?

 

 

Of course, once you've cut the weeds back the problem of what you do with them rears its head. 

 

During the wintertime we often burn them, (we usually pop a few Jacket Potatoes into the ashes and have them for lunch, mmmm) But in the summertime fires are just simply not allowed and quite rightly so. (too risky)








So we have to dispose of them responsibly and as ecologically as we can.

Of course we could simply put them to one side and let them rot down into compost.  But honestly the pile you see in the above picture was one of several so we would run out of room pretty quickly if we tried to do this with every pile so we load them into our little trailer whom we have nicknamed 'Tuc-tuc'. (so named because it is made from the back of a tuc-tuc three wheeled vehicle and because it is a cute name for a much loved piece of equipment).  

 



 Annie bless her proved to be great at pounding the weeds down so that they wouldn't just simply bounce out of the trailer as we drove along.  (Hmmm, I can see a whole new career for this young lady if the fancy ever takes her. Pressing Grapes. lol!)
 

 

Once filled we then take the weeds down to the city dump, where we put them into their organic dumpster.  Sorry I wasn't allowed to photograph the dump, the lady told me it was because it is a government facility. 





After that we then went on to the next task...


The repair of one of my terrace walls that had fallen down thanks to a heavy rainstorm. 

The first order of business whenever we have to repair a wall is to clear the area of weeds.  This is done for 2 reasons.  Firstly because trying to work on ground where you cannot see where your feet are being put is dangerous, you could trip and hurt yourself. 
Secondly because we pile the stones and soil up above the breach (tumbled down section) and the lifting of buckets filled even only a quarter full of soil and stones whilst being tripped up by weeds is no joke.





As you can see in the above and below pictures the fallen wall wasn't huge and it was our hope that we would be able to repair it in one morning. 



In the picture you can see stones and soil that have washed down courtesy of the rainstorm.  For the most part the wall is made up of medium, large and extra large stones, whilst the small stones and soil form the platform on which the trees grow.  However, when the rain takes it upon itself to push a wall down, the first thing to fall is the wall itself. 
This is usually because the base stones have been undermined by water or the soil from the terrace has had room to move slightly so setting off a chain reaction the result of which is a tumbled down wall.  But I digress, first as I said tumble the wall stones followed by the soil and small stones all of which quickly covers the wall stones burying them under sometimes tonnes of debri so you cannot see them at all.  Of course the burying of the wall stones means one thing and one thing only, we have to dig them out before we can even think about rebuilding the wall.




Now from experience we have come to know that the lifting of buckets, even ones only a quarter full above waist height is no easy task.  Especially after a hard day of wall building.  So we cheat, (okay it isnt cheating, just making our lives a bit easier) by lifting the buckets at the beginning and by placing the small stones and soil on the area above where we are building so we can drop them down. 

The term by the way for putting the stone behind a wall in this fashion is.....backfilling.

As ever whilst we filled and lifted bucket after bucket of stone and soil we also got down to sorting the larger stones into piles.  Anything above the size of ones fist tends to get put to one side, followed by the medium sized stones, the large stones and the extra large ones.  Flat ones are reserved seperately as they are used as packing and/or levelling stones.

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Base stones are usually large and heavy but water can and does move them especially when the rainfall is heavy and sustained.  To give the wall a fighting chance of standing up to the next onslaught of rain we dug a trench and fitted the stones in so that they had a better chance of staying where we put them.



I bet you are wondering why the newly repaired wall doesn't appear to be in line with the old wall aren't you.  Well the reason is simple.  When we dug out the loose soil and stone we discovered that the tree sitting almost directly above the breach had in fact weakened the wall with its large tap root.  It had grown in and under the wall which put it under constant pressure.   
Naturally we couldn't cut the trees tap root or it would kill the tree.  Neither could we build on top of the root as it would prove to be a less than solid footing for the wall if we did. 
So, we built in front of it, giving the root space in which to grow whilst leaving the wall where it is. (for now at least).

Once we have the extra large base stones in position we are able to build the wall up, all the while backfilling with the small stones and soil, pushing it down as we go so that it is as solid as possible.
As per usual Toby my dog was on hand to supervise, here he is checking how comfortable the slope was to lounge on. lol!

 

Wall rebuilt in one morning.
Job well done!

 

 

 Annie and Enrico then went on to help me tackle a few jobs that I have labelled 'round to its'.

Bugs have been attacking my squash plants so Annie got to work spraying them with Neem Oil. It is an organic bug killer/repeller so I use it whenever I have a bug problem and touch wood it works.

They then blocked up a hole in the roof blocks that had somehow gotten overlooked when we were building the house.
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After which they then covered a cable using old roof tiles so the sun couldn't get at it and degrade the plastic.

 

Our next 'round to it' was the building of a small wall to protect the house main cold water feed pipe from the elements. 

As we waited for the cement to set we turned our hand at cutting the tiles for the top of the blocks.

Both Enrico and Annie tried their hand at cutting them with the angle grinder.

The guys then rendered the wall to give a more finished look.




































Heavy rain and thunderstorms had been forecast over coming days so the guys keen to see the project they started through to the end kindly offered to help me finish the wall in the evening.

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It got so dark we had to use lights to see by. But the guys worked on until the battoning was in place, ready for the tiles which we hoped to be able to fix into place before the rain started to fall the next morning.

This is what we call 'beyond the call of duty volunteering', thanks guys.




Early the next morning Annie, Enrico and I frantically tried to seal the gaps between the tiles using silicone whilst above our heads the clouds heavy with rain threatened to drench us and our work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we wiped away the drips of silicone and tidied away the tools the heavens opened up. 

Thanfully we were able to cover the tiles with plastic so that the silicone had chance to set.  Phew!

'Job well done'.  .