Using what you have

My original thought to use wood mulch (instead of gravel) in the swales on top of the weeping tile was changed quickly after we pried up the concrete and it revealed that we had 8" of gravel and sand under the RV pad. We did not want to use the sand-gravel mixture as is because the sand would settle in the air spaces, so I built a sifter with 1/2" screen and lumber that was already in the garage. The larger rocks were saved for our planned herb spiral, sand was sifted into a cubic meter bag that we saved from the landfill, and the gravel was put directly in the swales.

Here is the sifted gravel on top of the weeping tile. Looks good to us! And even better, we saved a ton of money by not hauling in gravel. Sifting gravel from 2 of the 4 beds yielded enough gravel to fill over half of the swales.

When your wicking beds start to look like graves, it is time to stop digging!

The pathway to the patio door until June 4th was a few old boards that were saved from the deck. Since our beds were planned out and we determined that we had enough pieces to spare, we built a walkway. Locating all of larger pieces that were not marked for another purpose, we began moving the pieces into place. But there was something wrong about the path. It needed a really big piece... which we pulled out to the back alley last fall. Though we were getting some good muscles with the concrete moving, we were just not quite strong enough to move the piece by ourselves. Here is where "building community" comes into play! We asked our generous (and very strong) neighbour and his brother to help us move just one piece. In 6 minutes, they picked up the piece and put it in place. Thanks Chris and Anthony!

Using the sifted sand for a leveling surface, the pieces fit in place like a puzzle.