When we bought our property in February 2014, we almost immediately started planting our Fruit Tree Alley. The plan was to build a road the length of the backyard in between the trees. This would (eventually) allow for easy access to the chicken coop and to the planter beds (the planter beds are featured briefly in this post). The road will also serve as extra parking or space for events in the future. We did get an estimate for the road to be done professionally which was for $9,000! When all said and done, we did this for about $3,000 and about 100 hours of hard, sweaty work by the both of us.
Sure, halfway through the project we wanted to call it quits, but in the long run doing the labor ourselves it was the smarter choice for us. We can spend the money we saved on other projects like the chicken coop and yard.
The yard at the end of August 2014.
Preliminary excavation.
Creature two weeks after we brought him home. He was 11 weeks here.
Petaluma can get some heavy rains in the winter (hopefully we will get more soon). We've had a bit of flooding in the yard so we thought a French Drain would be a good idea. The second phase in March 2015.
We rented a Ditch Witch Trencher for a day to clear a space for the perforated PVC piping.
We encased the pipe in a sleeve to prevent debris and weeds from clogging it up a layer of drain rock underneath the pipe as well as over the top.
Knowing how persistent the weeds are here in Sonoma County, we thought it was a good idea to lay down some weed block before the base rock.
The frames are pressure treated 2" X 6"s. Leveling them was tricky but together we figured it out. Stakes drilled into the wood allowed us to level the pieces of wood and either dig or fill to maintain the level.
The road took 88 tons of base rock.
We took turns raking and bringing in loads of base rock.
More loads of base rock.
Almost done.
We will most likely add a bit more drain rock, but for now Fruit Tree Alley is done!
