Our yard is finally done! After much digging, weed pulling, raking, grass laying, boulder finding, and more-grass getting it’s complete. We ended up putting my garden in at the end nearest the scrap-metal-collector neighbors (who are super nice by the way). It’s the end that was low, but got filled in, but is still probably going to get the most water. It’s also got the faint odor of dog pee because the neighbors two guard dogs have their house and chain up area on the other side of the metal roofing fence. Bryan also had the brilliant idea of putting a flower bed around our three spindly trees – thus saving us time and money laying grass in that spot. So that is where Zoe and Avi can do their planting. Bryan was also a team player and got all excited about my crazy idea for finding big bouldery rocks for the borders between grass and garden. He seemed to quite enjoy driving around the rice patties and woods looking for big ole rock piles.
So, pictures are worth a thousand words:
BEFORE!:
The new electric weed whacker
After an initial whack at the tall brush…its not actually very grassy, just covered in debris
Bryan hosing out a fun play tunnel we found in the lot behind the house
landlord hired this guy and removed a fence piece to bring in some fill dirt.
Yes, Avi LOVED that this was happening in his backyard!
After that guy filled in the low spots
I dug out (actually pushed over) two of those nasty dead trees, and Bryan moved one leaving us three big muddy holes to fill with leftovers from the dump truck pile.
Filling holes and digging out all kinds of construction trash (gloves, plastic bags, glass, wires, tiles, a whole stack of bricks, etc..) from the backyard
Avi loves the baby snake sized earthworms
Bryan placing the big rocks for my garden wall!
Zoe making a “cob house playground”. The fill dirt they brought was very clay-ey. Good for cob, not so hot for growing. We’ll see if compost will help it next spring.
Laying down our crazy 6X6 chunks of grass, then filling dirt, and then bagged fertilizer dirt in between pieces. Would’ve loved some American-style roll-out-the-carpet grass.
half way done.
FINISHED!
So, yes the grass still looks like a grid. We’re hoping it will start growing together before winter. It’s so unbelievably nice and unexpected to have a backyard here. What an amazing place! So very very worth a weekend of hard work.
