Garden Excavation Part 1

While Mark was sweeping the lower deck last week he noticed a tiered garden area on the south side of Chigger Chalet. We hadn't noticed it before because the area was so overgrown with vines and weeds. This was an exciting revelation for us because living on a cliff doesn't leave much room for planting a garden. On Saturday we started clearing out the space. It's gonna be a helluva job!


I had been working on trimming out the vines for about thirty minutes when I realized I might want to take a Before picture.

Home to our future flower or herb garden.

That tangled mess was full of thorn vines! They made for slow progress. Remember the giant tree stump I mentioned in a previous post? It stands right behind this jungle area. 

Giant tree stump.

You can see from the tree stump photo just how high these vines and trees reach into the sky! It took several hours just to make a dent. 

Slowly but surely.

To the left of the future garden are stairs...if we can dig them out! They will give us easy access to the top tier of the garden from the lower deck.

Look hard and you can make out the stairs.

After a few more hours of cutting, yanking, and raking away the leaves I could see the retaining wall for the second tier.

Starting to reveal the stone retaining wall.

At this point I called Mark over from the project he was working on at the other end of the house and had him start removing the small trees that were growing in there. While he worked on uprooting the little trees I started excavating what seemed like a million rocks (and I'm nowhere near finished).

The rocks we moved from the garden.

We found flat stones, round stones, stones with holes in them that looked like small skulls and a few unexpected goodies! 

Shells I found during the dig.

Quartz Crystals also found during the dig.

I was over the moon about the crystals! It is the first time I have ever excavated my own from the earth.

Fibonacci Shell.

After Mark removed the small trees we could really get an idea of what the space has to offer.

Making progress!

The bottom tier has about four feet in depth and eight feet in length for planting. This coming weekend we want to start on the top tier if we don't get too much rain. At this point we had been working for about five hours and decided to call it a day. The photo below is what the space looks like now. 

The stopping point.

I'll keep you guys posted with our progress as we continue project Garden Excavation. Have a beautiful day!

~ Love & Light ~