Earthworks completed

The garden is hard to recognize now. While the earthworks were needed, I hope that we won't be making such dramatic changes to it again.

Petru Paler

Oct 11, 2021 • 2 min read

As of last Wednesday the earthworks are done. It took 8 working days for one person driving the excavator, with a bit of help from his team and us.

After chopping and smashing all of the eucalyptus, the excavator switched to a normal digging bucket for the rest of the work.

We dug the 3 ponds and 2 swales from the our design. Their locations and sizes had to change somewhat based on the terrain.

Sealing the top pond. It had some clay at the base, but we brought more from the bottom one (which was all clay). The middle pond is all sand and will likely need a membrane.

Digging the bottom swale. We walked with a laser level behind the excavator to ensure the bottom was flat. For this swale, the depth varies across its length due to threading it between two pine trees we wanted to avoid damaging.

As an unplanned bonus, we made 3 large Hügelkultur mounds from the smashed eucalyptus roots. We also used the large pile of smashed pine roots we got from our neighbors' construction site to fill the steep embankment left from when the house was built.

Hügel-embankment-fill (or Hügelböschungfüllungkultur, as the German-speaking might say)

The garden is hard to recognize now. It'll take a lot of work to stabilize the soil. While the earthworks were needed, I hope that we won't be making such dramatic changes to it again.

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