As usual, every week I try to get a load of gravel to spread out in a specific area. In this case I've been focusing on the garden. Between making a walkway to get to the Dog Kennel Greenhouse to surrounding the drum planters and drum raised beds, I've been focusing on getting the garden graveled up since this area is the next build up area I'm focusing on. Between the greenhouse, the raised beds, planters, and the irrigation system, the graveling is what will hold all of this together as it will make traversing the garden more convenient.
Of course one of the biggest problems I'm having with regard to laying the gravel down is the idea that the ground, especially in the middle, is mushy and will end up taking a lot of gravel to fully cover the area as it will mush into the mud and require successive layers of gravel to get to the point where the ground will be somewhat solid enough to walk on without allowing one's foot to sink into the mush. Another issue regarding the ground getting mushy is from the use of the new expanded micro irrigation system. With the sprinklers spraying and dripping in the different raised beds and draining onto the ground, more and more ground is getting saturated and soupy in areas where it didn't in the past. Because of this, more gravel will need to be added and topped off to ensure that more areas will be solid, whether walkways or surfaces to set the raised bed frames on. With these areas being covered, more ground will be ready for placement of future raised beds as I move old planters out and move trees around along with the setting up of new planters and beds. Some areas where old planters and/or trees will more than likely not have anything on them other than gravel as I'll be trying to keep planters and beds situated in a grid pattern versus just randomly placed. Areas where larger trees are well rooted will get railroad ties set up around them to create the food forest concept where the central tree will have smaller berry bushes next to them and smaller plants like strawberries or something like asparagus planted on the outskirts of the bed. There may be some trees/plants that'll be cut down as they're no longer producing and are actually dying. Only time will tell as I continue to make my way through the garden, reclaiming the overgrown grounds. On a side note, regarding the recovery of overgrown grounds, we did pick up a new toy. After having to drag the generator and extension cord over to the east end of the clearing to utilize our plug up hedge trimmer to cut through the blackberry briars, I decided that I need to be upgrading this tool just like I did with the other power tools. We picked up a battery hedge trimmer that uses the same batteries as our power tools. This unit uses a single 20v battery and is 22" long, allowing for a good reach, which is useful when cutting into thick blackberry briars. This tool will allow us to gain further independence from the cord since this will allow us to attack brush farther and farther away from any source of mains power. Hell, this tool will allow us to clean up areas such as paths to fishing spots or other areas well off the beaten path. Better than gas, more convenient than plug in power, this tool will see plenty of use in the days, weeks, and hopefully years to come. As time progresses, I envision a point in time where we will no longer need to plug in for the use of any power tool, everything will be battery powered. Even when it comes to supplying mains power, our soon to arrive whole house generator will grant us the power needed without having to crank up a portable genny and run extension cords to specific loads. Even on the gas side of things, we look to eventually buying one of the new battery electric zero turn mowers that will allow us to do the grass cutting we typically do on a single charge, freeing us of having to deal with the quirks of running a small gas engine mower. Ain't technology awesome?
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