Fall Yard and Gardening Day One

I am so grateful to have Frank helping in the complete overhaul of my yard into a functional raised garden and zombie apocalypse, preparedness zone. The goal is to have four garden boxes, a hanging plant awning, and a narrow herb garden by November, winter planting season in Arizona.

The compost is evolving wonderfully! It is turning into a bit of a habitat, which is much more than I expected. I assumed an open compost pile would attract flies and ants, but it did not cross my mind that the garden lizards that roam the yard would also get fat on the spoiled vegetation and the insects. I think we have the largest lizards in the development. The most difficult part of using an open plastic storage bin as compost in Arizona is the consistent need to water it. I save jugs of water in the shed in case of a not so rainy day, and typically have to pour six gallons every other week into the bin. The pile fortunately does not smell as bad as I expected from rotting vegetation. The most exciting part, I began with very little actual soil and now the tub is nearly full to the top with rich black dirt!

With a ten gallon tub of fresh made planting soil I need a place to use it. The ground in the yard is incredibly hard and not conducive to growing at all. Add to the soil issue, the former home owners installed a sprinkler system that has fallen into complete disrepair. Without large sums of money the system is neither going to be repaired or removed. So, I have a large hard surface that I cannot feasibly till into even if my compost is the natural born Miracle Grow. Time for higher thinking and rocks.

Yes, I have half a lawn filled with river rocks! I cannot stand to look at them there are so many. But, rocks are great for potted plant gardening. Placing rocks in the base of a pot allows the water to drain away from the dirt and not over saturate plants. Who needs a pot though when I have plenty of rocks! The plan: lay out a grid of rock bed rectangles. Each bed in this case is about five foot by seven foot. Once the bed is made we will place a fencing stake at each corner and frame the bed with chicken wire. I am not certain on height yet, maybe two feet. Six inches from the internal frame another stake and frame will stand. Now the fun part – use more river rock! Sandwiched in the wire walls we will stack more river rock and create a stone box to fill with compost, soil and tasty, tasty plants!

I am very excited to see this project finally coming together. Granted, Frank and I barely created a single bed of rocks this afternoon, but it is a start and I am proud of it.