Garden Project Halfway Done

Planning out this garden project I chunked it into four sections. The first was expanding the flat surface by 100 percent by building a forty foot retaining wall that was four feet high. This was the most physical part of the project, the most boring and the one I did mostly alone. The building was not that boring, but the shoveling the clay fill dirt was hell. I calculate I shoveled 72,000 pounds thanks to the rainy days soaking the dirt.

The second phase of the project was building the garden enclosure. After looking at hundreds of Pintrest pages of garden fences I designed what I thought would serve me well that I could do myself. I purchased the materials and had a church friend come and help me build it. We did the posts in one day, cementing 13– 10 foot four by fours around the perimeter. We framed it another day. On the third day we attached the wire which included 2×4 inch big wire to keep deer out and 1x 1 bunny wire that runs into the ground. David also built the garden gate on the third day. The fourth day he came back for a couple hours just to do a little finish work to give the enclosure a look that was a step up from a deer fence.

Now that it is done I have had some suggestions about what I can use the enclosure for besides a garden. It could be a chicken coop, a home for a lama, a Christmas village, and the worst suggestion was an internment camp.

I still have to do a little leveling of the fill dirt, but it does not have to be perfect. I still have two more major jobs to do. First, build the raised beds. I am on the search for cedar wood and once I get the right dimensional lumbar I can build those. Then install the irrigation system I have designed. That will involve more digging and actual plumbing. I think I can handle that.

Once all that is done I will have to fill the beds with the right garden soil mix and cover the pathways between the beds with wood chips. So despite my excitement for having the wall and fence done I am still a long way from being done.

A couple of side projects have crept up while I was building. I need to build steps out of block into the the slope next to the garden. I constructed a compost bay since I will need lots of compost for this garden and I may add an additional bay to it and I need to lay some slate for the entrance to the garden. I hope it is not an early or cold winter because I am going to be working on this everyday for a while. At least I have the hardest parts done.