Hard Yakka, Has Rewards

Luckily for us Plantation Homes left about 150m2 at the back of our lot from where their safety fencing ended (this area was heavily overgrown), however this gave us a great opportunity to get in there early and dig up those pesky grasses that start to accumulate over time. The reason we are doing this is so the soil is ready for top-soil when hand-over occurs. We do not want to have a paddock of wild grasses to dig up when we move in. I think that if we get on top of it now then all we have to do for the next couple of months is light weeding every couple of weeks to keep the creepers at bay (hopefully).

As a courtesy we informed our Site Supervisor that we would be "onsite" although outside the safety fence. It is nice to be there and watch your house be built, but if you decide to do the same yourself then ensure you have a reason to be there and your sole purpose is simply not to sticky-beak the workmanship. Hmmm.. although I was informed by a close friend that the only reason to go to the work-site is to watch the roofers strip to the waist and play with their trowels. 

Yes you know you you are..!!!

Communication with your Site Supervisor is paramount and he was fine with us being there. 

I can tell you the grasses and crawlers had set a good root into our land. One crawler had already climbed 1.8m of fence. Call me old fashioned but the only way I saw possible to get rid of this was a good soak with 'Roundup' weed killer about a week before digging. After trial and error it appeared the best 'you beaut' way was to whipper snip the long grasses to root level and then apply the 'Roundup'. Leave it until it turns to straw and then rake away the dead foliage. After that, all that is left is to dig up the roots. Trust me, not so easy when you are digging into clay; but a bit of perseverance and brute force will get them up. You really get to know your back yard doing it fork by fork. I made sure I got the hilt of the fork all the way into the ground before turning it over and breaking it up. We were so relieved at the end. We dug, We churned and we toiled. A great combined effort. We now know every single ant colony we have. But more importantly! We know our soil. By getting in there and getting dirty you feel happier with your land and you get a better feeling as to where you will plant certain flora.

This picture says it all. Mission accomplished, I'm buggered, let it rain...

Now all I have to do is control the neighbours grasses too..!!!