Day 316

With this being our first real attempt at a more large-scale garden. I expected there to be some trial and error. Knowing me and my history with projects, I focused more on the error. Before the garden was in place, we had our backyard scraped, we added the garden to a portion of the area that was pretty muddy and without much plant growth. I laid out a number of raised beds I was either able to acquire or create with our repurposed wood. We ended up encircling the entire area with a fence we got from a neighbor looking to downsize. Where there were no beds, I placed wood chips I had gotten free. 

This was a temporary solution to avoid getting too buddy and dirty when working in the garden.

The garden was new. With no experience, we may decide the layout wasn’t ideal  and we might decide to make massive changes. Now that we have a year of experience with thes garden, we know major changes are likely to be avoided with the layout. Knowing that, I can move forward with a more ambitious plan. 

A con of the wood chips was that they allowed many annoying weeds to pop through, needing constant pulling to help with the aesthetics of the space. Additionally, they were not the most comfortable to work on. They came in different lengths and some were like shrapnel with sharp edges. Having used these at my outdoor classroom, I knew this inconvenience was only temporary as these wood chips were not treated like landscaping mulch  and they would break down naturally much quicker.

With all this information, I can now make more permanent changes to our garden. I can lay down landscaping fabric to not only minimize weeds from popping up, but also serve as a base layer for more attractive and user friendly landscaping mulch we can now lay down. This will make our space more aesthetically-pleasing and save time from weeding. I plan on repeating the process in the area where our playset is. These should improve the look and feel of the backyard.

That being said, the nature play area will look a little different.