Well, it's been two weeks. My pace has slowed down. Welding all day in this heat is really killing my motivation. Good news, though. As I ran out of urbanite, my neighbor broke up his patio for a rebuild. He was quite glad to give me his rubble. I was quite glad to take it, a case of mutually assured construction.
Unfortunately, I need the urbanite in the farthest point in the yard.
I read that many gardens lose growing space because of too many paths. That inspired me to use the blocks simultaneously as mini-retaining walls and paths.
I scored some lawn clippings. Woohoo! I didn't even have to look in the bags. I could tell just by the freshly manicured lawn that their trash was my treasure.
First, a layer of lawn clippings.
Then a layer of homemade wood mulch. The water-retaining properties of such a layering system is supposed to be impressive. We'll see.
The upper-loop bed gets the same treatment.
The watermelon transplants from the neighbor across the street look happy now.
One function of mulch is readily apparent. Notice how the leaf that is mostly unprotected is covered in sand? That is the result of rain, just rain. Rain hits the unprotected dirt surface and throws sand onto the leaves. And the sand does not come off easily; maybe another rain will knock it off if there is a mulch layer down. Needless to say, but I'll say it anyway, that is very detrimental to the plants. Seeing just THIS instills confidence in me for the value of mulch. This is a squash plant, by the way.
My sunflowers are coming along nicely. That's a gourd plant just below the sunflowers.
Being able to do this with the water level made it worth the effort in making it. The anchor on the right hand level broke in half. Gorilla glue and electric tape seems to have done the trick.
Suburban Hermit of Fayetteville, signing off.
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