-- wrote in message
ups.com...
Hi, my garden is about 8m square or thereabouts, with a left to right
slope, 1/3rd of which is below the floor level of the house. I plan to
digg out (the middle part) of the left of the garden and use some of it
to fill in the right side, after building a small retaining wall (so I
still have side access to my garage.)

I started doing it by hand and the top spade depth's is pretty easy but
under that is thick clay with egg sized stones in which makes work very
hard indeed. I was planning on digging down deeper than I needed &
then back filling with the top soil I had removed earlier. It seems
that a mini-digger would make this work much much easier. Has anyone
had any experience of using them?

Little Mini Diggers, those narrow enough to go down a side path, are
available for hire, but a couple of things I would point out, 1) once you
have the digger on site, and once you have dug your trench, are you going to
be able to get the digger out or would you have 'dug yourself' in? and 2) if
you are going to dig all of this clay and egg stones out, is the stuff
suitable for building the ground up, or are you going to be lumbered with
the expense of getting rid of it?


The other question to ask is I was thinking of removing turves of grass
then putting them back later but from looking at what I've removed so
far I would have a very uneven lawn as my turves are only about twice
the size of a spade and not very even in depth (the sods.) The lawn is
also about 30% moss. Would it be foolish to forget the grass that's
there and attempt to sow a new lawn from seed after I'd levelled
everything out?

Take the turves off in any manner and stack them upside down. I have done
this where I have put paths in or dug extra flower beds. The grass and weeds
die and in a couple of years, or less, you have a lovely fine tilth :-))


Thanks for your help!


My pleasure :-))

Mike


H.M.S.Collingwood Ass. Llandudno 20 - 23 May Trip to Portmeirion
National Service (RAF) Ass. Cosford 24 - 27 June Spitfire Fly Past
H.M.S.Impregnable Ass. Sussex 1 - 4 July Visit to Int. Fest of the Sea
RAF Regiment Assoc. Scarborough 2 - 5 Sept. Visit to Eden Camp