July 11th

Finally, the big day of seeding the lawn. To start with, the sieved soil laid down yesterday had sun then overnight rain to help break it up a little more. This morning, after taking the compactor back to the hire shop, I used a piece of drain pipe to roll the soil out flat, without compacting it too much, so the seed could settle in to the earth. Once rolled out, I started scattering grass seed.

Not an easy job on a day with 15mph winds! I had to work fairly close to the ground around the edging next to the railway ballast and observatory slates. Elsewhere, I was able to walk around stooped over, to put the seed box about two feet from the ground. That gave a reasonable spread of seed without the wind carrying it too far away from the target area. The big box of seed was just enough to cover the whole area, but we did have an older, already open box that I can use for any areas that need additional seeding, once I see it coming through.

Once the whole area was seeded, I started sieving soil again and lightly spreading a layer of soil over the seeds, to both hide them from birds and to help keep moisture around the seed. That took another two and a half bulk bags of soil. After that, I gave the area a few minutes of watering, to wet it all down and stop the wind from blowing it all away.
 

 
July 13th/14th

I took a day off from digging on the 12th, but did have a wander around the garden between the showers to get some "Then and Now" pictures. The first picture below is a 2021/2023 picture and gives a general view from the end of the garage, then trailer storage, shed, vegetable planters, observatory, lawn and railway. It shows how much the area has changed in two and a half years.

On the 13th, I did some weeding of the railway embankment area and then pinned down a weed membrane to block any existing growth. The four tree trunk offcuts were then placed along the embankment area, to give some additional height. They can gradually rot away into soil. I then started barrowing soil from the bags near the lawn and workshop to be piled up to form the embankment until I ran out of bags.

On the 14th, I spent most of the day on the drive, bagging more top soil. I've wrecked my elbow and can barely lift a coffee cup, but got another 13 bulk bags filled with earth and finally got to the end of the pile. I was finishing off the last bag as the heavy rain arrived, so quickly finished shovelling and got the rain cover over it before coming indoors. The weather forecast doesn't look great for several days, so there's probably going to be a pause in progress.
 

 
July 17th

I took the weekend off from digging, but on Monday morning, it was bright with scattered clouds. I'd noticed some big sun spot groups over the weekend and so made an effort to catch them. It was only a 40 minute session before the clouds came, but I got some fairly good results. While the clouds rolled in, it ramained dry, so I took the opportunity to do some odd jobs on the observatory.
 

Most of the time I'm observing, I close the observatory door as a wind break, but while setting up or clearing away, it would be useful for the door to stay open. The prevailing wind had other ideas! A while back, I painted a hook for the door to keep it open and finally today, I got it fitted.

Another smallish job was to replace four hinges from the front flap. At the time I built it, I couldn't get enough brass hinges, so four of the seven were steel or plated steel. Today, these four hinges were replaced with some solid brass ones purchased recently.

July 18th

Yesterday, while working on the observatory, my new lawn was bare soil still. Checking again tonight and we have grass! In the last 24 hours, it's gone from seeds with no signs of life, to blades of grass at least an inch tall. There's a few areas that look a bit thin where nothing has happened yet, but I'll give it time. I can re-seed any thin spots later.

There have been no updates recently, due to being on holiday in Normandy, France. It's been 18 years since we were last there and re-visited all the D-Day beaches and museums, among a few other things. Just before we left, the grass was beginning to take hold and fill out, though there were a few bald areas where the seed hadn't taken or was washed away by the heavy rain. I did a little reseeding before we left. We did ok for weather, while back home it rained lots! This was good for my lawn as my neighbour didn't have to keep watering it.
 

By the time we got back, we had a very green lawn. It's still a little thin in places and has a few weeds coming through from stuff that was in the topsoil, but it's getting there. It's not firm enough to walk on, so I'm going to leave it alone until the roots spread and it dries out, before I do any further reseeding of cutting. The multiple bags of topsoil on the driveway are still awaiting moving to the railway embankment. I'm waiting for a couple of dry days to get on with that.

On the 7th, it was a full on Dodge day, moving 16 bulk bags from the drive to the back garden. Two were dropped near the new lawn, while the rest were stacked up around the garage, garden wall and workshop until needed. The following day, the two bags by the lawn were scooped out into the wheel barrow and tipped out into the embankment next to the railway. The drive was also jet-washed to remove the remaining traces of the soil pile.

Between the 9th and 11th, I got another five bags emptied into the embankment, slowly building up the height and width. I also mowed the main lawn, which due to all the rain in July, hadn't been mowed in about 4 weeks.
 

Over the weekend, we were messing around with a new canvas dining shelter for our 1940s camping, so didn't get much else done in the garden.