While most of the time we focus on the plants, edible and otherwise, in our food forest gardens, not enough attention is placed on the pathways.
To a certain extent that's because we throw down woods chips, put in out plantings, and make our way best as we can through the gardens. I had an idea from the beginning, though, of having more than a haphazard way of getting around. I wanted people coming to the garden to see all that there was.
That meant planning for few straight lines but rather winding ways that would be more visually pleasing, making the garden seem larger than it really is, and allow someone to see all the garden contained, including some surprises along the way.
Now initially my garden beds were simply mounds that were wood chip-covered, but I've had a change of heart. Except for around each of the fruit trees that serves as the anchor for each of the planting beds, I'm doing away with the wood chips and adding homemade compost and soil that will make it easier to plant vegetables in.
Although you can plant into wood chips -- so long as you pull back the wood chips to get down to the soil -- I have a good 6-8 inches of chips down in my yard and getting down to the dirt is difficult and impractical. So eliminating the chips and substituting in good, homemade compost will make it easier to use the full extent of the beds.
I'm also lining each of the beds with good size stones to define their edges. I had considered using wood, as in downed trees, to line them and even though their decay would have added to the fertility of the ground I was looking for something a little more permanent, so I went with rocks.
These are bowling ball (or slightly smaller) stones that are dug a little into the ground to make them secure, and then butted up against one another until the entire garden bed is surrounded in them.
To dig them into the ground I'm just using a handheld, three-tine garden fork that I scrape back the wood chips and dirt with and can set the stone in place. One problem I was having though, is the garden tools have natural wood handles that have faded over time and when I would place them down on the faded wood chips, it was difficult to see and I'd spend almost as much time looking for my tools as using them.
To remedy this, I did something I should have done a long time ago: I painted them a bright yellow! Now I can throw them down anywhere in the garden and they're immediately visible to find.
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