Yarden Evolution: Patio

Bear here...

Here is the history of our patio:

In the beginning there was grass and it was ok but not what we wanted. Then some dang fool bought 10 yards of gravel for the new driveway when he only needed 2 yards at most. The gravel had to be off the driveway by winter or, well you know, it would kinda be stupid if we had to park on the street our first winter because our new driveway was still filled with gravel. The fix was to dig a big hole about 2  or 3 feet deep, have the packed dirt leaning away from the house, fill it with said gravel and call it a patio! Below is our In the beginning process photo from 2006.

The patio put a dent in the gravel pile but didn't take out enough gravel so we could park our cars. That would take a few more projects and this post is about the patio. below is the hole is filled and leveled and ready for the next step.

Have I mentioned we like Celtic and Scottish landscape? What would be more Celtic than a standing stone circle, done to back yard proportions of course. We didn't have stone but we had a sidewalk we broke up and could set the pieces on their sides so they look like standing stones. You can see below what we had to work with. Notice there are four "stones" that are taller than the rest? Those are our compass stones, they are set in the four directions and represent the four elements. ( North = earth; South = fire; East = air: and West = water. To add bling to the patio we decorated the tall stones with the element symbols. Later I would put my grill closest to the south as I could get, seemed right.) 

Next step was to fill the gaps in the gravel with fines then tamp flat then spray the fines and tamp them flat again so we had a solid level base for the weed blocking fabric. I learned my lesson with the gravel and only ordered two yards of the fines.  Wait, when did this turn into a how to blog? I'm on a roll, might as well keep going.

You will notice we also put weed fabric around the outside of the stone circle part to keep the weeds down. 

As soon as we get the fabric pinned down we can add the finishing touch of pea gravel. (small decorative rock) Nice and neat. We figured it might stay that way, we were wrong.

Time jump to 2013. I don't remember when we put the trellace up but Theresa wanted a place for runner beans and more privacy while we were outside. the trellece works great. We found out some weeds were able to grow in the sediment that sits between the weed fabric and the rock. They are easy to weed, just pull and they come right out. Other weeds have been able to get through the fabric over the years they are a little more difficult to pull and some we don't worry about pulling.

You could say we let it get away from us sometimes, like this shot (below) from 2016. Theresa could get this cleared out in about 40 minutes. I would take a couple hours because I'm not that focused and there is usually some bugs I can take pictures of. (Oooo... Distraction Side note: see the tall thistle plant in the lower left? Bumble bees love those. When the flowers are mostly dead cut them off before the seeds can spread and you don't have to worry about unwanted thistles. You can also eat thistles, I know it's in a book we own somewhere. If I try it, I'll blog about it.)

In recent years we weed where we want to walk and let nature landscape our patio for us. Why Do I consider a patio part of the yarden? Because food grows there. If we wanted to we could eat the dandelions, we have had wild salsify grow there and we can grill that if I get to it on time, around the patio is areas of suncholks and wild ginger we can harvest. You think the patch on the left is weeds? think again...

Surprise! We have a wild strawberry patch!  Theresa planted two or three wild strawberry plants near the front of the house. In 2016 found our first wild strawberries an have been harvesting them ever since.

That's it for the patio. I'm kinda glad it didn't stay so neat and tidy. Where's the adventure of that?

Type at ya later,
​Bear