There is a slope along the back fence-line that doesn’t really look like that big of a deal — until you have to mow it! And all of the “grass” on it is crabgrass and weeds. My poor little reel mower and my body hate it with a flaming passion. It didn’t take too many times with the mower before I knew it was the future home a flower bed.
Starting point when I was looking at the house back in 2012.
Last spring when the north fence came down, I used the north end of the area to “store” the broken fence panels. Then it became the home of the sod I dug out when creating the new bed and walkway along the back of the house. I have been slowly trying to kill off the grass and stockpile “dirt” to fill it in later. The project has been on the agenda for about 8 months but I was always too busy, or it was too hot, or there were bigger priorities on my gardening calendar. Then this winter, I got serious about it.
There is a slope along my back fence line that is a total pain in the ass to mow, so I decided to put in a retaining wall and level it out. This is mid-February — blocks laid out just to make sure I don’t suck at math again.
Blocks hung out for a few weeks until I had time in the middle of March. Then with my trusty black truck and diligent wheelbarrow, we got to work.
Didn’t take any pictures of actually making the wall but I followed the usual basic steps — Dug out trench for blocks, leveled it, filled with 3 inches of paver base, tamped, and set the block. After the first layer was done, I unloaded the wheelbarrow straight on to the wall. It went pretty fast. Only had to stop a few times to cut end blocks. 130 blocks total.
I leveled it out sod and other random dirt the best I could and then laid newspaper on top of it, then held the paper down with old fence boards. The wood planter box here is built on top of an old satellite dish base that I couldn’t find anyone to rip out for less than $400, so it became a planter. Cucumbers did great there last year.
Lily Dog is an excellent supervisor!
Now I had to wait a few weeks for my April vacation to get some dirt delivered. In the meantime, I was hoping the grass and weeds would die back under the newspaper.
A big-ass pile of dirt — 4 yards of 4-way garden mix.
Took a solid 3 days to move and pretty much broke my body.
Retaining wall bed and new 4×4 planter filled. Also topped off my existing beds. Still had way too much dirt, so there is huge pile of it on the other side of the yard. Figured having too much good dirt is not a bad thing.
Put in irrigation to all of my beds. Filled in with plants. Since I spent almost $800 on the blocks, dirt, irrigation, there was no budget left for plants (expect for garden veggies), so I had to make due with moving and dividing stuff all ready have. Might be kind of thin this year but it is going to look great in the long run. And I don’t have to mow it!
Mom and Dad came down the second week of my vacation and helped me put in some irrigation and then I divided and moved a bunch of plants to start filling it in. It looks great and is kind of in the shade in late afternoon, so I can sit on it and rest.
The Overall[s] Adventure 
You must be logged in to post a comment.