In September 2011, we started work on our new garden. We were very lucky, because Gatti had managed to get us a flat in a street where nearly all of the flats had a garden. Unfortunately, the flat had been unnocupied for several years, prior to which it had been occupied by an old lady who had been unable to look after the garden.
Consequently, the garden was quite literally a jungle when we moved in – you could stand at the front of the garden and not be able to see the back, which was only twenty or so metres away! Our landlord subsequently “cleared” the plot, although this essentially consisted of just cutting everything down to ground level.
The ground itself was essentially undisturbed, with every square inch full of roots, including the roots of several very large trees. I started clearing the ground by digging up the roots, including the tree roots. Some of these took days to get out of the ground.
Needeless to say, progress was somewhat slow. I resigned myself to the idea that it would probably take a couple of years to prepare the ground properly and turn it into a garden we could enjoy and take pride in.
Work on the garden continued into October 2011. This was possible because, although winter was looming, the weather stayed dry for the most part.
As I dug over and levelled more of the garden, not only was I accumulating a large pile of roots, I also had a growning collection of rocks, broken paving slabs and other objects that had lain buried for decades.
Fortunately, there were no unexploded WWII bombs (these are regularly unearthed in Hamburg!).
The part of our garden of garden not covered in rocks and other debris (maybe one third or so) was starting to look a little more like a garden and less like a wasteland, although there was still plenty of work to do, and winter was approaching.
And that’s about as far as I got by the end of 2011. Fortunately, Hamburg is a very green city, with lots of trees. So, even though we did not yet have a garden to sit in, we could still enjoy the autumn colours from our kitchen window.