Garden Grind

Too grey and drizzly out today for me to want to go out and work in the garden, but yesterday on my lunch hour Maxx was able to join me out there for a while and we worked more on the "battle of the blackberries". I figure we have the 40'x12' garden patch about 50% cleared of blackberry cane at this time (perhaps a little less), so hopefully on the weekend I'll have decent weather and be able to get most of the rest done.

I'm hoping we'll be able to get some of those railway ties or garden ties, whatever they are called (large rounded wooden beams) that we can lay around the garden area as a marker, with the surface area of the garden covered by black landscaper's plastic, then get a load of gravel (figure about 100 cubic feet would do), to cover in the entire area for a base, to help keep down the intrusive plants like berry cane and morning glory, and form a good base on which to build our raised beds, which can be open-bottomed and then drain through the gravel.  We could either build the base of my planned beds one slat or board high all around, to get a start on them and have more surface area, or install the beds to full  height in stages possibly, although if we were to make them low to start off with I'd have more planting area to work with right away, and could build up another level in the fall after the growing season is over.

When we work on the garden we then need to get started on the fence right away, as we'll have to replace the fence edging around the garden as we get it set up, then we can work our way out from there.  We're hoping we'll be able to extend the fence along the side of the house to go around and enclose the front yard eventually, too, with a nice little gate with an archway overhead for access.  Give us a little more privacy, and would look nice ... and in theory be one of those things that would increase the value of our home when it comes time for selling or redoing the mortage (next year)!