So I am a little behind on my original plan of having everything done by Friday (go figure). Rather than admit the probable amount of time a task will take, I’m a man who likes to schedule projects according to time intervals that I prefer to work in, and then make adjustments later. I am noticing this is a trend amongst academics.
I have, in fact, made good progress in the past few days. As you can see in the below photo, the bed is in place now.
After thinking about the planting season and how much time I have left, I took my mother’s advice (always a good idea) and partitioned my bed into two, four-by-four sections and I will only fill and plant in half this year. The black liner material is something called “weed block,” a polypropylene fabric material that prevents soil and weeds from entering through the bottom of the bed whilst allowing for drainage and air flow. I don’t remember this stuff being around when I was a kid, but it’s pretty amazing. The only drawback is that it is very fragile and a little hard to measure out since it is overly cohesive (think plastic food wrap when it gets stuck to itself). Putting the bed in place was not overly difficult, though I did hit several roots from my neighbor’s trees that I had to work around when digging the post holes (another tool that I wish I had thought to borrow is a post hole digger).
We went on Friday to HD and picked up 18 cu. ft. of top soil:
Here’s a picture that I took largely to rest my back while I was aerating the soil:
Finally, yesterday I showed Nicole how to use the saw and drill and together we built a small flower box for the front yard:
We’re hoping to buy some cheap perennials and grasses to put in the rather drab looking bed in the front yard. All of this going to HD has reminded me of when we were renovating our apartment (shudder). Hopefully we will be able to go there today and buy the last things for our garden for the year. My revised goal is to have everything planted by Tuesday so I can work on the flower box this weekend.