Garden Box Construction, Part 9

And here we are at Part 9. This project just goes on and on, doesn’t it? Technically it’s listed as a “weekend” project and I think we’re now in our third weekend of it. Granted, we’re making two boxes instead of just one, but still. It just seems to go and go…

We were up and at it early this morning, walking outside at 10AM ready to tackle the second box. While Liz continued to struggle with placing the box and making it level, I went inside to work on notching one of the decking boards.

Side note: delighted to report that the decking boards fit perfectly, length-wise. It felt fantastic being able to slide them into place and just watching them well… slide into place!

One of many obstacles, Liz encountered, while trying to clear the ground for the second box. In addition to this, we also had to cut away a fairly large root (twice).

This huge guy ended up being in the way. It’s hard to imagine that this was still in our backyard, especially after we had an entire crew out here, who cleared the place.

Liz and I marveled at what might possibly be under the ground here. Where there’s on brick, there’s bound to be more.

The second box required a lot of situating, assessing, rolling away, adjusting, re-situating. This is Liz, checking out how things look from the driveway.

Second box in place! Due to the nature of our backyard (and the steep incline of the grass), we had to set this one more into the ground.

Liz found an old Reese Cylinder lock (a quick search online suggests it was a bicycle lock).

The decking boards in place! This part went much, much faster than before.

It only took one attempt with the notching, and everything else slid into place. Well, it slide 99% into place, and then a mallet made up for the remaining 1%.

Small scare during the notching: I was cutting one of the ends and a small piece got knocked backwards, and got stuck between the blade and the guard. This ended up causing the whole thing to seize and lock, and kind of kicked back into my left hand.

It was a sudden and surprising thing, and I felt it mostly against my thumb. For a moment, I was shocked and unsure what happened. Then I had a “Oh crap, do I still have my thumb?” moment.

Had to take out the blade to get rid of the errant piece of wood. The radial saw still works, but now it’s making an odd sound. Can’t tell if it’s because the blade is off, or if this incident mucked up the motor.

Stapling in the pond liner was easier this time (though it was a lot hotter, due to the sun). All in all, it was a really beautiful and warm day out – and pretty ideal, for what we were doing.

While we had a lot of clear skies, I kept waiting for the snow to appear.

Small setback: when we got the pond liner installed, we started to work on cutting up the performated drain pipe.

That’s when we noticed that the drain pipe we purchased was… not performated.

This killed our momentum. I was ready to push through the pipe work (cutting and wrapping the ends). Then I was going to get more coffee and power through all the soil mixing we needed to do.

I was really thinking we’d get everything done today, but suddenly… we had to pack this into the car, drive to Home Depot, and get a new round of drain pipes.

At Home Depot. Unexpectedly.

We opted to go for the straight 10′ lengths, and found that to be a much better approach. Less bending and wrangling, and much easier to work with.

We got everything measured out and placed.

At this point it was 6PM, and I was tempted to try to push and keep going. We talked about how setting a cutoff time was really important, and originally had a 5PM stop time. We were an hour over, and Liz made us call it quits.

I didn’t want to, but later on in the night… I’m glad we stopped when we did. It paints me to leave things here – so close to being done. But we had to stop.

Hopefully, one more night after work can find us mixing up all the soil we need. We can fill up this box, finishing topping off the first box, and then… dare I say it… we’re done?

Liz, checking in on her plants. Promising them their new home will be done. Soon.

Related:
Garden Box Planning Mode
Garden Box Construction, Part 1
Garden Box Construction, Part 2
Garden Box Construction, Part 3
Garden Box Construction, Part 4
Garden Box Construction, Part 5
Garden Box Construction, Part 6
Garden Box Construction, Part 7
Garden Box Construction, Part 8