Rain Rain Went Away! New DIY Walk Way Done

Rain, Rain Went Away!

The weather the last month or two has been kind of crazy. We had warm weather (87),  then cold, (38) then warm, then cold, then cold. Last Wednesday we had record-breaking rain, 1.2 in in the Boise area. I was working that day from home and looking out thinking maybe our house was going to start rising and float away! My poor seedlings almost drowned-

I put the chickens in mid-morning because they were soaked, locked up the coop and gave them a snack-

I figured two hours later I could let them out, but it was still pouring!!! Finally about 5:00 pm or so it started drying up and I let them out. Everything was super saturated. The rain stopped the next day, just a sprinkling. The low Thursday was supposed to be 38 degrees. Yes you read that right 38 freaking degrees at the end of May. There is something wrong with this picture. We covered up our tomatoes and peppers that were outside already. I'm really glad we didn't plant everything else at that point. It's in the 70's this week, 81 today so hopefully this is the end of the cold rainy weather. However one never knows. I don't feel too bad as I know people in the Midwest and the East Coast are getting slammed by tornadoes, floods, etc. Other sad news is it appears there is only a handful of peaches on our peach tree. I suspect one of the evenings when it dipped into the 20's after the tree has blossomed pretty well killed most of them. The good news is we have lots of apples and lots of pears! I think I have a few frozen peaches left from last year, so I may hold out on those as long as possible.

New DIY Walk Way Done-
Last December we went and visited my husband's family in Portland, Oregon. We saw how my brother-in-law had his garden path redone in his backyard with crushed stone. We had a high-traffic pathway of round pea gravel on the north side of our house that is always a mess, even with all of the pavers we added years ago. Sadly round pea gravel moves around a lot-

buried pavers

Dave always wanted to redo it with something else and we went back and forth about what to use? One of the problems with the pea gravel it was always moving around making it a pain to take out wheelbarrows, mower,  garbage, recycling and city composting. Then there's bringing things in! After I saw the material that my brother-in-law had installed I told Dave that's what we should use! The same exact materials weren't available here. It was actually a lot cheaper than most of the other materials we could have bought, the whole thing came around $300.00 for three yards and renting a small and large tamper. We felt it was a good home investment for the long term. We rented a small tamper to basically smash the stone into place for compaction-

It was for the long stretch on the North side of the house, the small area in front of the gate going into that, and the entrance going into the veggie garden. We had the delivery done Friday as Dave took the day off. The broken edges of the crushed stone are really key as once it is laid down, tamped and watered as it won't go anywhere. We will be reusing the pavers somewhere else, possibly is the floor for the new coop we're thinking about building. Nice thing about crushed stone is it also lets the water go through it. It's permeable. It's also slightly rough so if it gets icy on that side of the house, which it occasionally does, we will still have good traction.

Here's the steps to doing this- First measure the area several times. Figure out how many yards you'll need, price, color, etc. It pays to shop around! We scheduled delivery since the truck we could borrow couldn't handle 4 tons! There are online converters to convert from square feed to yards. Here's the prep...

First remove the old gravel and soil-

 Most of the excess soil went into the various flower and veggie beds-

Next decide on your edging, we chose pressure treated wood, nice and natural looking. Measure and cut your lengths-

Temporary storage

Build and install your edging, using common galvanized nails, we used survey stakes, cheap and re-usable in the garden. They hold the edging in place, once stone's in you can pull them out -

Level as best as you can-

Delivery time!!!

We also got some shredded bark in the mix, oh joy! 

Dave separated the mulch as best he could, there was much more than we thought!

I did call the stone place we bought the rock from and complained that we wound up having 2 large garbage totes full of the mulch! I let them know we weren't very happy. Driver should have checked his truck before loading, wound up being a real mess! 

Next start adding rock to the path, rake as you go, after doing half water well. Next tamp down, do other 1/2. Water and tamp down again!

Dave did the entrance to the garden and then the entrance into the coop, both of which tended to get pretty muddy-

 

Before

It was also uneven after years of sinking in. Dave went and bought a couple more pieces of lumber to frame in the areas-

I suggested we widen the path, good idea!

So after Dave Tamped down the first layer watered it and let it sit overnight next he added the second layer of crushed stone. Watered it in and tamped it down. It turned out to be pretty loose still. After doing some research we decided it would be best to rent a steel gas powered tamper that we can press the stone a lot more and leave a much firmer surface. So the next day we went back to the rental place to pick the BIG one up. It looks like this-

It weighed a few hundred pounds and was very tricky to unload out of our Outback. We used two 2 x 4's  (my idea) to push it back up when done. NOT FUN, more of a 3-4 person lift!

Dave did the path several times, then we took back to the rental place, Dave watered well. 

All in all we love it! Dave did a great job, with me contributing more ideas.

All done!

There was a little mulch mixed in the rock in the two small areas, but we can live with it. It will bio-degrade over time. We'll use the 2 totes of mulch in the garden. Rosie the hen came to inspect-