If one of the reasons for buying the woods was for me to get some extra exercise, it’s working!

Some time in the last month one of our Oaks has fallen. This is from a combination of wind, poor rooting, and the ground going to mush.

The problem is Water logged ground. The ground is clay with a layer of soil and leaf mould. The water seeping out of the hillside gathers in a boggy area. This should be drained off by a series of ditches. Over time these have been blocked up and now the bog is spreading.

I don’t want to lose anymore trees so it was time to accelerate my ditch digging and clearing. This is where the exercise comes in. The ground is too wet support a mini digger and apart from that there are no rides (clear tracks) to get to the heart of the woods. So I’ve spent a few hours every-time we go up, Digging.

The first ditch, I had already started work on.  The picture shows the most extreme type of ditch blockage. A tree had fallen across, eventually sticks and leaves catching under it and then back up the whole ditch.  For a ” quick” solution I dug under the tree.

I then had to clear about 25m back from the blockage. All with just a shovel and spade. The stuff I’ve dug out is saturated leaf mould, I’m wondering if it will make good compost. I’ve eventually got it dug down to the clay layer but it does need widening. The rest of this stretch, 150 m, needs some attention as well.

This section feeds in to the bog. With it clear the extra flow might have exacerbated the problem of the bog expanding.  The next bit was to contain the bog/ marsh with two new ditches.

This small ditch and another at the other side of the bog cuts through the layer of leaf mould. stopping the leaf mould farther down from becoming drenched.

The bog eventually drains, forming a small stream or brook.  I dug up from the stream following the course of the original ditch to meet the new ditches.  This digging took me almost 3 feet down through the leaf-mould and some clay to a layer of stones.  I’m wondering if this layer of stones was the original stream bed?

That phase is now complete, the bog is contained.  Last time up, we started clearing the stream of blockages caused my fallen branches and sticks, then tried clearing some of the silt and leaves that are getting washed down.

My couple of assistants had a fine time.

There’s plenty more that needs clearing and I’ll be chipping away at it as time goes by. THE EXERCISE WILL DO ME GOOD!

 It will be interesting monitor what happens as weather turns wetter.