New look grow beds and benches

[Brad75]

Hi Alpineart,

That is an inspirational setup! Giving me ideas.

Cheers,

Brad75.

[alpineart]

Hi SpongeMann, it looks a treat as the trainers begin to leaf out . The blended colours and foliage should be very striking .

Hi Brad75 , ideas are good , action is better , complete bloody fantastic , but I haven't finished yet .

Cheers Fella's . Alpine

[peterb]

Hi Alpine
what a sensational job you've done it looks a million dollars mate, i only did a small section of retaining wall which i then clad with crazy paving slate and a patio area with samepaving and i was knacked after that , mate you're a workhorse
regards
peterb

[alpineart]

Hi peterb , thanks for the positive feedback , if I keep moving forward I'm making progress . Cant make progress sitting around twiddling my thumbs , thats for sure . Its a pity the walls are almost covered in plants as it hides all the hard work .

Got orders to move the tree's an the ballastrade along the steps as Karen is worried about falling . After yesterdays incident they are a hard place to take a tumble , the tree's are in the way so there will be breakages sooner rather than later .

Cheers . Alpine

[SpongeMann]

That is great Alpine. What do you add to the soil in your plant beds. I want to start growing in the ground. Here in Florida we either have sand or clay. In my case sand. I want to have a gameplan before spring. Any suggestions?

[Bush bunny]

Spongeman, add some compost or humus? You get a fair bit of rain though don't you in Florida? Maybe seasonal? I lived in Bermuda, and unfortunately during a drought, but I grew great tomatoes in a sandy soil, that was only about 14 inches deep. Hand watered the lot!
From underground rain water tanks though. When the rains came we were one of the few who did not buy water we had three underground tanks. Victorian property. Bleeding poisoned ivy everywhere though. Bermuda is basically coral island/s joined by causeways.

[alpineart]

That is great Alpine. What do you add to the soil in your plant beds. I want to start growing in the ground. Here in Florida we either have sand or clay. In my case sand. I want to have a gameplan before spring. Any suggestions?

Hi SpongeMann , mate I'd kill for nice sand . I added pine bark and Euca mulch adding the mulch every year for 10 years then found that the curl grubs and termites just love the stuff so i ceased using it , Still have the curl grubs in the ground but the termites were eradicated . I top dress now with stable manure and rotary hoeing the old mulches in last year with another top dressing to go on now the plants have began to leaf out .

I will be keeping it well away from the trunks as now i have a slater infestation and the love young bark on the trainers . With clay add a clay breaker /gypsum and sand plus humus , with sand add humus / stable manure . Rotary hoeing works miracles , if you dont have one , hire one out it's worth the few dollars to turn it upside down and break it up with a machine .

Cheers . Alpine

[Bush bunny]

Spongeman, You can buy prepared compost in a bag. Depends on how big an area you are covering. Gypsum is one clay breaker, but depends on what else is there in the soil too. You could just dig in some dry hay or straw, it rots down quickly. And use it as mulch too.
Clay loam is very good soil with good drainage. But that is clay with lots of organic matter and other minerals. One of the best soils in gardens, with a good moisture holding capacity drainage and air too. But like granite soils, clay on its own, is soggy when wet, and can become anaerobic with nasty bacteria, and sets hard when dry. Just do as Alpine says give a rotary hoe, then add your compost or humus. Sand does not hold moisture well, but it does give good aeration. Yet I know one guy that swore on just plain algae mixed in with the sandy soil, plus leaf and straw, and kept a pond with ducks that encouraged the algae growth. This is out in the bush, not the suburbs. Yes he was a hippie and grew nice you know what too. Best of luck.

We had lived in London's clay basin, in Potters Bar, and during winter my father would sprinkle lime on the soil, after turning it, it froze of course, then the lime broke up the heavily clay soil. Beaut veggies and roses.

[SpongeMann]

Hi Bush bunny and Alpine. I hope all is well everyone. I do live in Florida and as you guys know you can grow many fruit trees in and vegetables in sand . But on my land you put a shovel in the ground and its like butter. The shovel goes in like nothing. My neighbour fixes his soil but he doesn't bother with it too much anymore because he says that all the nutrients seep straight down into the Aquafer . He grows organically. The Homassasa spring is under Spring hill and Homassasa fl . That is why I went organic. It's a community effort. The fertilizers from the community was effecting the spring but it's back to normal.I am going to stock up over winter. Work is real slow right now . Thanks you guys. Your advice saves me hours of internet searching lol

[SpongeMann]

Hi Bush bunny and Alpine. I hope all is well everyone. I do live in Florida and as you guys know you can grow many fruit trees in and vegetables in sand . But on my land you put a shovel in the ground and its like butter. The shovel goes in like nothing. My neighbour fixes his soil but he doesn't bother with it too much anymore because he says that all the nutrients seep straight down into the Aquafer . He grows organically. The Homassasa spring is under Spring hill and Homassasa fl . That is why I went organic. It's a community effort. The fertilizers from the community was effecting the spring but it's back to normal.I am going to stock up over winter. Work is real slow right now . Thanks you guys. Your advice saves me hours of internet searching lol

[alpineart]

Well stage 2 is under way , tiding up the front between jobs

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. Its a damn site harder making smaller / narrower walls than tossing the big ones together . Bit rough but it will do the job keeping the soil in place . These Trident's got a trim back to the first node in most cases , the boxing in place for the next section

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then it back to the rear yard to complete to short retainers .

Cheers Alpineart

[MoGanic]

Very nice mate, looks great and I'm sure the trees will benefit from this. Not so sure if you're still functioning 100% after all this work though haha

[alpineart]

Hi Mo', been a few years now since I was functioning on all cylinders . I did manage to tear the scar tissue in the lower leg crouching down continually for a couple of days , a little bit more movement but a heck of a lot more pain . It has slowed me down for the last few days hence the Trident work .

Cheers . Alpine

[MoGanic]

Hi Mo', been a few years now since I was functioning on all cylinders . I did manage to tear the scar tissue in the lower leg crouching down continually for a couple of days , a little bit more movement but a heck of a lot more pain . It has slowed me down for the last few days hence the Trident work .

Cheers . Alpine

Mate, you gotta take it easy haha. My father in law doesn't stop either despite a bad back and even worse knees! I reckon I'm not far off that level of insanity either though so I can't really talk.

Well done as always mate!

Mo

[alpineart]

With the fire wood done and dusted and an eye injury to nurture back to good vision I decided to lay a few rocks together to create another retaining wall , display bench and future grow bed

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7 days later and good progress has been made

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This section is 21 metres long , only 9 metres to go unfortunately I need a break . The wall will have a 75mm x 300mm raft concrete slab cast on top rather than the labourious task of laying fine flat pieces of granite .

Cheers Alpineart