Small garden, big change.

We live in a small mid-terraced house on a "walk" on the outer edge of a housing estate with a small front garden and slightly larger back garden with no direct vehicle access to the property.

Because the house is on a slight hill, the back garden is split into two levels and in the past, when the kids were little, we gated the lower section off for safety.  Now the kids are older and we have a small dog that gate has been removed and a small fence put up to stop the dog messing on the grass and killing it off.

We've had a change of neighbours on one side since we moved in years ago and to be honest they are not very pleasant to live next to in the slightest with regard to noise levels (in that it would be quieter to live above a nightclub), things being thrown over the fence, climbing up the fence to look over and just general intolerable behaviour that is not acceptable in normal society which makes it impossible to enjoy any time relaxing in the garden.  Our kids like to go out there in the summer, put up the little sun-protecting tent on the grass and make themselves a cosy reading/colouring nook with blankets and pillows etc, but not anymore due to the unpleasantness, so we gave them the option of leaving it as it is in the hopes things may improve or for us to turn the garden into a working garden where we can grow vegetables and maybe get a few chickens.  They both enthusiastically voted for growing vegetables and getting some chickens.

Here goes...

 The first photo was taken a few years ago, its the only one I have that shows how the garden was before.  We had to hire the grass cutter thing and it was hard work getting the grass up.

Then we removed the small pond, which had been neglected since the neighbours threw an egg over last year which hit the fence, smashed and the contents went into the pond on a hot sunny day and wrecked the water pump.  In its place we put the Railway sleepers for the base of the chicken house and I had to move my Jasmine.  The ground underneath the grass contains a lot of clay and is difficult to dig so we also built a large raised bed and started filling it with the contents of the two huge compost bins.

We put weed control sheet down and will get some shredded bark to put down as path.  We had to get a number of big bags of compost to fill the top of the raised border.  Yeah, that's me sifting through the homemade compost.  We also chose some vegetables to grow and this year we will try runner beans, purple cauliflower, savoy cabbage, small round carrots and we bought a small pot of rainbow beetroot.  We also have a small tomato greenhouse and we have cherry tomato, yellow cherry tomato and a lemon hot chilli pepper.  We also have herbs in containers of lemon balm, mint, curry plant and lemon thyme.

The chicken house is on order and we've found where we will get the chickens from but will wait until after our holiday to go and get the chickens.