Survivor - Extreme Home Edition

I have been thinking of this post for some time now. Not that much time of course since my blog is only three months old but that can seem like a long time when you’re thinking about sharing your deep dark ugly secrets. Well, it’s not that deep of a secret but it is certainly dark and ugly, though mostly ugly.

As I began writing this I realized that it needed to be done as a mini series. I sometimes regret that I didn’t have a blog when we were doing it or a film crew for that matter. It could have been a reality show called Survivor- Extreme Home Edition! There was drama, injury, near death experiences, and feats of utter idiocy. I will tell you this now, my husband and I did this on our own. We didn't ask any friends for help (we're idiots) We do not have deep pockets, hell we didn’t have two dimes to rub together so there was no hired help either. There was however one neighbor with a track hoe, poor timing and a wicked sense of humor. He has a cameo.

Now before I show you this I want to show you why. Why in the world we moved here and why we did what we did. Now a view like that will make you do stupid things, right?


I posted these photos once before on the fantastic garden site www.gardenweb.com Everyone there was so nice to me about my garden and I just couldn't shake feeling like a fraud for it. No one knew the real dirty truth about my garden and well, my guilty soul is nagging at me again. I just thought that before our relationship goes any further you should know what’s lurking underneath this foundation makeup. OK, brace yourselves this is going to be ugly and uncomfortable for both of us.

Take a look at this photo below. Do you see the little red car and those two trees in the background? Now take a look at the gravel. This gravel will have a staring role in our little drama. Right past the red car and just under that thin looking “grass” is the bedrock of the mountain side. It is also where I once stood about three years ago and said “Say, why don’t we dig up this rock and see what it looks like.” Of course at the moment I was standing on top of it with my hand rubbing my chin as if I had a beard, a pipe and was by nature a very deep thinker. Had I actually been a deep thinker I would have packed my bags that instant and never set foot on the place again. The electrolysis technician and I are still working on the beard issues but I’m keeping the pipe.

This next picture was taken a bit later and exists only because a wise friend of mine told me to take pictures. She actually had to tell me several times because I had no idea that I was going to do anything at all, let alone what I was going to do when I did it. There was no master plan or minor plan for that matter in my mind. Ok, there was this one thought in my mind. “Good god, I can’t stand looking at this gravel!” Everything sort of followed that one thought. I can be pretty focused. You see while the back of the house looks out over an amazing sweetheart view of the rivers, farms and a quaint little town; the front of the house looked out onto a gravel pit! If you look closely- Not too closely- you will see that the gravel of the driveway, which unfortunately runs right past the front of the house, just keeps spreading outward. I like the country look of our long gravel driveway but it just didn’t stop. It ran right up to the front of the house and all the way out to the end of the “front yard.”

I used the words front yard very loosely because as you can see there is no yard. There is quite literally only gravel, bedrock and some weeds. If you will now direct your gaze toward the back of the long view photo you will see a light brown blob to the right. That is the little rock I so rashly decided to dig out. Only God himself was going to dig out that rock. That wasn't an interesting little rock. It was the freaking mountain! Ok, well that’s not going anywhere then.

The next bit of impossible information I discovered was that that rock/mountain didn’t just end there. No Sirree. That ROCK just kept on a’ coming because well, it’s the freaking mountain. Then one more bit of ridiculously impossible news...wait for it…that gravel was hard packed like cement and went all the way down until it hit the ROCK. So there you have it. There was more soil on the surface of the freeway than there was in my “front yard” and the freeway was quite possibly softer.

As you might discern from the photo this is a large area. You have to pack a lunch to walk to the top of the driveway. There was no way we could afford to haul in enough dirt if that much dirt could actually be found even. The delivery costs alone would bankrupt us. So now what am I going to do with a gravel pit on top of bedrock??

Tune in next time when…

It has been very hot here in the PNW for the past few days. We just aren't used to this kind of thing and begin whining when we don't get rain daily. Well, that's a wee bit of an exaggeration. This has just been an unusual season. Spring was unusually warm and dry and then it just jumped right into full blown summer. We can expect a week or so in late July to reach upper 80s and to be dry but we have already done that and then some a few times already and it is only the 4th.


I have been watering my little gravel beds with dedicated consistency and they are doing just fine. Since there isn't any water table at all beneath them they have a hard time staying moist in this kind of heat. The beds in the back have a very good water table and I have not had to water them once this season! I am hopeful that one day after years of adding soil to the front beds that they will develop something of a moisture trap. I can hope can't I? Until then I have decided the hose actually does belong in the driveway and not neatly coiled up somewhere. I have started thinking of ways to decorate it so that it becomes a piece of garden art. Like some sort of colorful interactive garden snake. The design department is currently working on some ideas.

The other day I added a new impossible bed. Plant pocket is more accurate. Since everything is bedrock I have to find all kinds of ways to create water table substitutes. This is onto of the big rock that I am turning into a second waterfall. I lined the area with black plastic and built up with rock to form walls. Then filled it with a layer of driveway gravel from the trench project. I used some scavenged dirt from the hill side and a good helping of a very rich dirt mix I made a couple weeks ago. The made dirt was a mix of peat moss, homegrown compost, manure, bagged compost, chopped organic matter and some clay like fill dirt for binder.

I have planted it with a variegated Ivy, various trailing sedum, Candy tuft and Alyssum. Right now I think it looks to "round" but then again the rock is bowl shaped there. What can you do? I am thinking that as the plants fill in the roundness of it will diminish and it will look more naturally blended in. I still have to figure out what to do with the foam sealant at the bottom where the rock and liner meet up. Another day, another project.

I hope to make some time tomorrow to post updates on the gravel trench bed. I'll probably do that when I slink inside to avoid the heat of the day. I am such a wuss.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Fourth of July. This is a great country we live in!

Acts of insanity

Today I began pick axing the gravel driveway in what will become a long narrow bed to separate the driveway from the garden. It has long been a thorn in my side that the driveway ran right up to the garden and all down the length of it. I can't move the driveway nor can I afford to continue encroaching on it. I was stumped for some time but I think I have decided on the only option there is. I will dig out a long narrow trench along the length to fill and mound with soil. Then I will plant.... something ? in there to visually separate the two spaces.

The gravel is unforgiving. The only reason a human being would be out there swinging a pick ax at it is because they were wearing striped pajamas and chained to their neighbor who was also wearing striped pajamas. I however decided that I am unwilling to look at that gravel driveway even one more day. So pick ax in hand and the chiropractor on speed dial I go out there to fulfill my mission. It will be 60ft long,

1-2ft wide and as deep as I can get it. After about a foot and a half you just start hitting bedrock.

I know I'll love it when I am finished but right now I am pretty sure I need professional help... and I mean the kind that can prescribe psychotropic drugs.