The Remnants of A Garden

The old garden beds are slowly being pulled out and replaced with the new. As the ground is being leveled and the bricks that I had used for the sides are being stacked for someone to take them away.

I offered them on Freecycle Seattle, that way someone who might have use for them can have them for free. I have found plenty of awesome items on Freecycle myself, as well as, given away a bunch of stuff. I highly recommend the service. Give a little, get a little.

It is a bit weird pulling out the beds that had been the location of many lovely salad greens. I know that the new beds will better suit my needs, but there was something wonderful about the janky, put together garden beds. They were kind of like my personality; Informal, but productive. I admit that the new beds and garden design will be more aesthetically pleasing and that will make the yard much more pleasant for me and my neighbours. The design will be easier on my back and knees.

Flattening out the surface is an interesting exercise.  What I think is flat actually seems to hold giant divots once I get a piece of cardboard over it. It is hard not letting the perfectionist in me get overly anal about flattening out the space. I know that it will be covered with cardboard and wood chips eventually and that as long as the beds are level it will be fine. But part of me wants it to be beautiful but then again I need to look at it as; I am planning a vegetable garden and just by definition alone they are beauty incarnate.

Speaking of flattening out surfaces. This is the other project I have been working on for a while. The pathway in front of my back gate. I had dug up this section of grass last autumn and had been procrastinating since.

Again, I found about 300 paver bricks and two bags of paving sand on Freecycle and decided to work on the pathway from the front garden to the back yard.

I ended up buying about 4 more bags of sand for this section alone, but getting that level was an interesting feat.  I finally was able to get it level enough, but there are a few wobbly spots and a couple of gaps. I am considering filling them with solar-powered light bricks, which would be a nice way to light the pathway. The gate is a little cattywompas and needs to be rehung, but this should help with the problem of it getting hung up on the grass.