Expanding the barnyard garden

We removed an old barnyard fence that was originally designed to keep livestock out of the garden area. It added another 400 square feet to the garden.

I removed some old cedar posts that were used to keep the soil from washing away and replaced them with another short rock wall. This time we used a hand truck to move very large stones weighing over 100 lbs. each.

Vince went ahead and planted a lot more seeds to account for the extra space. We’ll now have space to start herbs this Spring.

UPDATE 3-12-13: The wall is now complete.

Using stone walls as erosion control

I had no real plans to go all out and build a stone wall on the upper sides of my terraced garden sections, but here I go.

I love old rock walls, but this is one of those projects I get half way into and wonder why I do this to myself. Luckily we have a lot of stone on the property, and it has the same feel as the old rock wall along the East side of the farm.

I only want to give this project a couple days, so I didn’t trench and inset the bottom stones. You can do that and then build straight up the dirt face and cap it with a large flat field stone to lock it into place. If you begin noticing soil building up behind the cap stone over time, you can then add another layer of stone. You can use concrete. I dry stacked these.

This isn’t designed as a retaining wall. This is a low erosion control wall. You will want to use proper anchors and construction design to retain soil or other heavy material.