Wednesday, July 9, 2025

Landscaping, Part 2

So there I was without a garden.  At the time, the neighborhood was mostly treeless except my West neighbor's yard.  So I had a lot of sunlight.  But the soil was terrible; all sand and gravel.  The first thing I tried was to dig 5 gallon holes and fill them with soil from the woody half.  I read about that in a gardening magazine.

The idea was that you would do that one year, then do it again in new spots between them the next.  Gradual improvement.  The next year, I decided the digging was just too hard.  Ever dig a twenty 5 gallon buckets of dirt?

So I tried something else.  The County offers free mulch.  Residents bring in all the tree/shrub debris, they pile it up for a year, bulldoze it around into new piles and 2 years later - something close to compost!  And if you bring a trailer to the place on a Saturday, they load it up for free!

I covered the area in 4" of the stuff one Fall.  And then bought a roto-tiller and turned into the soil.  And did it again the next Spring.  I planted tomatoes and corn there.  And built a few small raised beds for smaller crops like beans, broccoli, carrots, etc.  Worked well.

Troy Bilt Rototiller 7HP | Live and Online Auctions on HiBid.com

Not the exact model, but representative...  But well worth the cost.  I used it a lot.  Lowered some ridges, flattened some mounds of gravel, dug down almost 6' along 60' of the fence for a flowerbed.

It needs some professional maintenance now though.  I stupidly left old gas in it for 2 years 😱 and gas engines are bit of a problem for me to clean or fix.  

Tomorrow, "Edging"...



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Landscaping, Part 2

So there I was without a garden.  At the time, the neighborhood was mostly treeless except my West neighbor's yard.  So I had a lot of s...