Progress Out Back

It's been a while since there was any significant work on the house and garden. We've been slowed down by weather, sloth and a wedding in Australia, only one of which was enjoyable. However, our plans for the parking lot out the back are finally underway.

Here's what we started with:

When you only have one small car, you don't need room to park four. So I sought quotes to remove about half of the old concrete and put a kerb around the cut edge. The five quotes I received ranged from reasonable to astronomical. When we assessed them, one stood out because: the tradesman actually came to look at the job (as opposed to asking me to email a photo); he was pleasant and helpful; he could begin promptly; he had appropriate insurance: he was a member of the local Better Business Bureau. And, of course, his quote was one of the reasonable ones, at least partly because he didn't propose to use expensive equipment.

I didn't photograph the work in progress, but the job was done precisely as he described and we were very happy with it.

There is now a three-foot strip that runs along the top of the wall, behind where the car is parked. I will plant this with shrubs and perhaps my espaliered apple trees.

The large rectangle beside the car space is destined to have vegetables in raised beds.

We had a load of organic mix delivered and Michael promptly began preparing the beds.