A New Project….

HAHAHA… I’m not even done with the garden beds and I gotta start a new project…   actually it was one I was planning and part of the whole deal…  you see I want to expand our little patio/landing spot by the front door.   Nothing is growing there, and I’d like a little more room for the firepit and like maybe a table or something, I dunno…   just needs to be bigger and better done.

We laid out the first group of stepping stones and we did an okay job… but I knew it needed to be done a little better.   We started it last year because as you can see, my steps end up in the grass and everyone was bringing in dirt and mud and such, so we decided we needed a little concrete landing spot at the end of the stairs.

It solved the problem, but it also created problems a bit, because they are a little wonky and need to be reset.   Yeah, we tried to level the space and I bought a couple bags of sand to pour under and all, to make a nice cushion, but they were still a little weirdish…

So I decided that the kinda sickly grass/dirt we remove will be good bottom filler for the last raised bed, and that will make our good dirt last a little more, because we’re building one more raised bed by the bird feeders for the berry plants!

Great idea, eh?

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Progress Report on the Raised Beds

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Well… the dirt arrived yesterday, on Earth Day, which I thought was kinda cool.

I got 3 cubic yards of the good stuff and it’s screened and compost mixed, and by all my neighbors and friends reports from a good dirt provider.   Which is very important you know, like having a good dentist and a mechanic you trust.

It wasn’t dirt cheap… HAHAHAHA…. ah, I didn’t even mean to do that.  It wasn’t cheap actually, $120 but I figure it’s a lot easier than going and getting umpteen hundred bags of topsoil from the big box place and it’s delivered (which is good because I still don’t have a van back… it died on Saturday…)  and we girls really wanted to get digging.

So we got started.  Unfortunately all we have to tote the stuff is a foursome of these little 2.5 gal pails.   So we decided, if peasants in China can build a wall a zillion miles long just a bucket at a time, we can fill up a few raised beds.   Besides the walking and lifting and all would be good for us.

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It takes a lot of bucket loads to fill up a bed.   And yeah, I helped too!  My back is crying out in agony today so yep, I didn’t just take video and photos… it’s a blogger’s job you know, to document the things going on.   So during my breaks, I photographed!

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3 cubic yard is a lot of dirt.  Really, it is.

In the end, by sundown, we had two of them filled up pretty much.   I want to go and get a couple 10-15 bags of cow poo compost to really juice up the beds…  so we didn’t fill them tippy top.   I figure since we only want to do this whole construction thing once, I want to make sure it’s a good and worthy effort and that we have a bumper crop the first year!!!

Aren’t they purdy looking????

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