Compost Bin Site Cleanup, Part 1

Now that I have the parts of the new compost bin nearly complete (one part needs to be fitted in place after the outsides are all in place), I needed to clear the area where it will go.

Before...

It's a mess there.  Vines, weeds, junk saplings...  Stuff I have ignored for too long. 

I went after it weed-whacker, loppers,  hedge-trimmer, and sickle!  Then I had to beat apart the original framed beds from 25 years ago still in place.  I must say that a heavy sledge hammer is wonderfully destructive! 

The pile of debris is impressive.

I dug up most of the relatively good fertile and live soil (left alone to the worms for 10 years) and put that in a big trash barrel at the side for spreading on the new compost bin in thin layers later. 

And discovered a layer of old carpet I had used between the old framed beds originally to smother weeds.  OK, I'll leave that for later.  Today's work was to remove the old boards and pull out most of the weedy vines.  Thank goodness for leather gloves!

The old carpet was too heavy to drag away.  I used my riding mower and rope to get it to the trailer where I am collecting debris for the landfill.   The mower has more horsepower than I do.  And after all the work loosening it, I enjoyed hauling it across the yard at no effort...

After:

Major improvement.  But still not done.

Lessons learned:  Carpet makes a great weed smotherer, but you can't leave it in place more than a year.
2.  A solid steel spade makes a good cutting/pry bar on buried carpet.
3.  A sickle is a good cutting tool to slide under buried carpet and cutting the roots below.

More tomorrow...