Big Garden Project Underway

The big garden project we posted about the other day is fully underway. For the record Alycia said I was being "a blog tease" by just posting a picture of a metal stake in the ground. The accusation stung a bit.

The work crew came by to stage some of their equipment and mark off the area that they're going to dig. The wheelbarrows are for transportation of the dirt. 

We're going to be removing a whole bunch of dirt from the back yard and instead of having the work crew haul it off, I made some raised garden beds in the front yard for them to deposit the dirt. This is the much preferred "two birds with one stone" gardening approach.

The crew has lined the grass with plywood to prevent it getting trampled from numerous wheelbarrow loads.

After the first day the crew left their digging machine in the back yard. We're on day two of digging. Everything was OK until a depth of about five feet when they hit hardpan (aka caliche - this is your word for the day) and their pace slowed considerably.

The hole is going to be roughly 8' x 10' and 7' deep. And at our insistence they fenced off the hole so the yard was safe for dogs during the construction.

All the material that was removed on the first day was hauled, one wheelbarrow load at a time to the raised garden beds in the front yard. This is roughly about half of the total material that was removed. The other half of the material? That is going to be staged in the back yard to be put back in the hole once the hole is completed.

So what does all this amount to? What are we doing? You can feel free to hazard a guess, but we're going to leave the big reveal for a later post.