Garden Expansion and New Walls 2009

Since building the garden on the backyard slope, I've found two problems. One, I used logs for the walls, but after 5 years they have started to rot out. Second, because of the slope, I had 5 levels (a 6th level is being worked on), some of which were only 3 feet wide. Another problem is that there is about a 4 foot wide strip along side of the back of the house that just doesn't get enough light. With that I had two options, move the house 4 feet towards the road, or extend the garden away from the house. I looked into moving the house, but it would be too difficult to do since the septic system is in the front yard. So, I'm extending the garden the other way. After extensive searches, I've found a few suppliers of free rocks to replace the logs, and I'm combining a couple of the levels, I'll have 3 wide and 1 narrow levels when completed. I've taken a few pictures to show the expansion progress, with planting only 3 or 4 weeks away, I'm trying to get as much done as possible.


This is an older picture when I was first constructing the garden with the logs.


A picture where you can see all 5 working levels, notice how thin a few of them are.


The large rock (lower center) was moved with a "come a long", see the void to it's left where it was, to become part of the wall.


This is the pile of rocks I've been gathering for sources found on Craigslist.


This picture was taken before I started this year. Notice the snow still in the background, I couldn't wait. I started removing the log walls and replacing with rocks last fall.


This shows where the expansion will be going. The hill to the tree to the right of the rock will be removed. The nearest tree will remain and be part of the wall.


A lower angle picture of the above, to show how much of the hill has been removed.


Another view to the expansion.


These were was taken with the expansion in progress.


This shows the 3rd and 4th level, with a partial rock wall.




The expansion complete on the 2nd level, even build a ramp for the tiller.


A view of the level, 1st to the far left, 5th (which is still a work in progress) to the right.


Finishing up of the walls for level 1 and 2. See tiller ramp between the rock and tree.


A view towards the house.


A view from the roof, this was taken before the construction of the 3rd level wall.


Filling in old level 5 to match old level 4 for a new level 3.


A view towards the sun room, the start of the 5th wall can be seen in the bottom right of the picture.

So, even if I have another bad year of vegetables this season, at least the garden will look good.






1760