Landscaping the last paths

Let’s just emphasise the words ‘last’ here. The last time I shovel buckets of gravel for days on end. The last time I battle with old thick inflexible swimming pool covers into tight places. The last time you have to read about my paths.

And a first. Last night I went out after dinner to pick some cherries for cordial making. And I made a detour down to the potager… and just wandered around the paths.

It was very peaceful, very neat, and I was very happy.

I didn’t have that sharp intake of breath that betokens major job to do.

Yes, I do need some more enormous chestnut logs to hide the black fabric holding the upper paths. But the sap has risen and we don’t cut trees until autumn now.

I just look right underfoot. All the gravel is down. There are some left over for toppings up and adding to bald bits. Which are inevitable.

Here is the last shot you will see of buckets and gravel piles and exposed path liner.

For now I’m calling it done.

With the bindweed jungle lurking underneath this soil I have gone double layers wherever I could.

Weedproof fabric first.

And this is slightly slippery swimming pool cover fabric over the top.

One of the irksome things about any gravel path is the inevitable spills of soil from your shoes and whenever you harvest your crops. And with fabric you seem to get a nice medium in which things lurk and germinate.

This old pool cover is slippery and hopefully the soil won’t linger and turn into colonies of annoyance.

Gravel over the top to weight it down.

And so, we are good to go. Have I written that silly phrase before? Happiness is making me distracted.

And for an encore. I even tidied up the new compost bins at the very top of the potager against the wall. Thy are hidden mostly from view by the fig. It had all the detritus like a thousand feet of irrigation hose from when I had seventeen beds that needed drip feeding. Plus random fabric remnants that I didn’t want to take up to the shed.

One side compost. The other side all the accoutrement this potager needs. Stakes, buckets, tools.

Without the usual steps down to this huge vegetable garden (building site), I find I am trekking way too many times a day up to the potting shed or the house for bits.

So things are orderly. And at hand. For now.