No worms.

Well, every time I think about it, I giggle. I picture the shock in their beady little eyes when finding the front door blocked by my renovation efforts

 

I ended up putting a layer of compost and a layer of bark mulch on the top. I couldn't be bothered digging the compost in but I weeded first. Probably a couple of inches of each, so around 4 inches in total. It looks good if nowt else.

 

A lump just the right size to plug a rodent hole ... Had it been bigger, it would have made a good door stop!

 

I've done the main bed and I have some compost and mulch left over so I'm looking at doing the smaller beds in the garden, but after a light dig over and weeding the soil is already high in the beds and I'm concerned if I put more material on the top it will end up spilling onto the paths. How should I deal with this? Should I remove some soil, or should I shore up the edges in some way?

 

Hi @hoofy, if you can manage any more digging it would be best to get some of the old, infertile soil out. We made a new big border this spring and first took the grass off and then dug away about spade deep of the rock-hard wormless clay and rubble. In went hundreds and hundreds of litres of manure and compost, and now the soil level is below grass level so that's easy to mow (I also sunk in plastic edging strip).

The fluffy, dug compost you have will go down naturally a bit. However, if the bed is surrounded by paths and not grass, you could buy some nice edging, like a mini-fence. Or build your own

Homebase basic edgings
Primrose - a bit pricier

Our new border is now feeling very soft and fertile, and the worms are everywhere It was hard work to get rid of the clay and rubble though!

After the grass is out and the real digging about to start...: